The final few days...and home

Mammoth Cave is exactly as the name implies - gigantic, the largest cave in the world. They have found hundreds of miles passageways and in fact, there are still parts and passageways being discovered.  There is one large room that is so big that it could hold three football fields!  We opted for one of the short trips underground, a one and a quarter hour visit to the area with the most formations, including stalagmites and stalactites.  The day was hot and it felt good to descend with our guide and about 24 others into the tunnels.  The tour we took was called "Frozen Niagara" because the featured formation looks like a frozen waterfall.  It was very beautiful and we were glad that we had chosen that tour.

Kentucky has many interesting features and one of them is that it is, in some places, a dry state.  Each county can decided whether it is "dry", "wet" or "moist".  "Moist" means that restaurants can serve alcohol and some can even sell you a sealed bottle of wine to take home.  Not knowing about all this, we were surprised when we tried two nights in a row to find a place for Jon to replenish his supply of gin.  We ended up driving about 20 miles each way to get into another county which, of course, had liquor stores just inside the county line.  By the way, I had long since bought a box of wine at a Target store.  The size I bought was equivalent to 2 bottles, was easy to transport since it didn't break or leak, and was very inexpensive.  It was also good.  But I digress...

The day after the cave, we traveled east to visit a Shaker community called Pleasant Hill.  It is another "living museum" kind of place where volunteers dressed as community members in the 19th century demonstrate skills as they would have been used in that era.  This particular community began in the early 1800s and survived for over 100 years.  I tended to lump Shakers and the Amish together and of course learned that I was incorrect about that.  The Shakers were both celibate and communal, severing all family ties when they joined, donating all their possessions to the larger group and living in "family" houses, men sleeping in one area, women in another.  They were very modern however.  They had the latest in tools - the latest model of sewing machines, saws and iron heaters for example.  They also treated women equal to men - for every Deacon there was a Deaconess etc.  Most of this is in direct contrast to the Amish.  The site is the original site of the community and the buildings have been restored by a local non profit group.  It was very interesting and we were glad we'd taken the time to drive there.

In the late afternoon we stopped at My Old Kentucky Home State Park.  It is named of course for the song written by Stephen Foster and is Kentucky's state song.  The park features a video about him as well as a mansion built by one of his uncles, John Rowan.  We took a guided tour of the house and it was interesting to contrast it with the homes we had seen in the deep South.

One place we had been told that we "had" to visit was the Louisville Slugger museum and factory and so we did.  Our trusty GPS got us into downtown Louisville and we enjoyed the building and tour that allowed us to see the bats being made.  Currently, Mariner Justin Smoak has his bats made there and in the past Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez and other Ms greats had their bats manufactured there too.

We were excited to see our friends, the Ewalds - Tom, Sharon and daughter Laura, who lived in Poulsbo for years but moved to Murray, Kentucky twelve years ago.  We enjoyed a great reunion with them Monday night, catching up on their lives and seeing their new home.  They looked wonderful - life there agrees with them.  I didn't know that Sharon is a skilled quilter and I loved seeing her creations - they were an inspiration for me!  The next day they took us to Paducah.  I wanted to see the National Quilt Museum , the recognized center of quilting in the country, and they were pleased to go with us and to show us the other sites there too.  The museum was our first stop and it was amazing!  We were blown away by the fabric art that we saw.  Their annual competition was in April and several of the winners were still on display.  The designs, colors, stitchery and piecing were gorgeous and Jon gained a whole new appreciation of the art form.  After a nice lunch, we saw the murals that have been painted on the flood prevention cement wall that runs along the Ohio river.  The murals were fantastic, beautiful scenes from Paducah's history.    Long the home of Native Americans, the town was established by William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.  It was a trading center, a site of Civil War battles and is now part of the TVA's (Tennessee Valley Authority) nuclear energy production region.

After enjoying a final meal with our friends, we said good bye and returned to our hotel room to pack.  Somehow, by discarding AAA tour books and state maps when we didn't need them any more, we found room in our luggage for the souvenirs we had bought along the way.  The next morning, Wednesday, we drove through western Kentucky, into Illinois and across to St. Louis.  Our flight was not until 6:00 pm but we had to return the car and then get to the airport itself.  I was able to check in online Tuesday evening so that saved us time but we still left our hotel early.  Fortunately we had no problems and reached St. Louis early in the afternoon, well away from rush hour.  All went well with the car and at the airport.  Our flight took off on time and we arrived back in Seattle at around 8:30, Seattle time.  By the time we got home, it was around 11 - 1 am Kentucky time - but that was okay, we were home.

Photos: friends Tom and Sharon Ewald and Jon, Laura Ewald, two herbalists at Pleasant Hill Shaker community, bat outside Louisville Slugger museum, Jon heading into Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, in the cave - two photos, iron heater at Pleasant Hill, weaver Louise at Pleasant Hill. (and repeat of herbalists).