May 8th – Bowling Green to Mammoth Caves National Park

Bowling Green is the home of the Corvette factory and museum. We started our day with the Corvette Factory tour. For $5, you get an hours tour thru the production line. Watching the power train make a turn and see the chassis glide down from the ceiling is something you have to see. Each car passes thru many stations to become a Corvette. Each station only has 2-1/2 minutes to complete their task. At the end of the line, the Corvette is started and driven thru test stations before being prepared for shipment. Sorry, no pictures are allowed on the tour.

The Corvette museum is across the street from the factory. If you every wanted to see a world-class collection of Corvettes then this is the place to come. The Corvette story is told with displays, videos, displays, and cars, cars, and more cars. Engine assemblies, transmissions, chassis, and prototypes and concept cars are displayed. This is another must see.

We arrived at Mammoth Caves National Park in the afternoon. We decided to slip in a tour today and schedule another for tomorrow. We drove to the campground and selected a campsite while waiting for the “Historic” tour to start. We discovered 117 screaming near high school age kids waiting in the tour assemble area when we returned. We would be the only adults on the tour except for a couple chaperons. The tour guide / ranger told us the ticket office would refund our tickets and comp another tour if we choose. That is want we decided to do. We took the “New Entrance” --- the only option at that time of day.

I’ll save my judgment about the caves until after tomorrow’s longer tour.

Dinner was a big bowl of steamed vegetables with a cheese sauce prepared at camp. It was great.