DAY 2 (Sunday, August 3):

We started our day by eating at the Waffle House.

For me personally, the best side stop was in Louisville, KY. I had listed many things that were supposed to be just down the street from each other; World’s Largest Baseball Bat, the World’s Largest Vampire Bat, a plaque commemorating the creation of the “Happy Birthday to You” song and a water tower that was in the shape of a large bottle of booze…etc.

While there, we saw this strangely decorated car. It had a bunch of metal objects all over it. We walked over to it and the choir of clicks from the cameras taking pictures was in the air. Jerome’s family is “picture happy” and over the course of the trip took over 5000 pictures!

This car was an “Art Car” and the artists name is Jim Shore. Apparently there was an art show over the weekend and he was one of maybe three cars that were the last to leave the area. I asked if I could purchase one of his art pieces which were license plates cut into fish shapes. I thought they were cool. Apparently the Frenchies found them interesting too because by the end, we had purchased 5 fish shaped license plates and he gave us a 6th for free. Then he told us about the hotel/restaurant across the street; Proof on Main. It is an art museum within a hotel/restaurant. VERY COOL. I highly recommend stopping on Louisville if you find yourself in this part of the country on a road trip.

On to the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. We spent two days at the Woodland Cottages in the Mammoth Cave National Park. Our first day, we took a tour of one of the caves. Prior to going on our tour, we needed to eat and this was the first of a couple of stops at Pizza Hut. They really enjoyed the buffet and the price. We made it out in just enough time and were put on the bus to go to the entrance of one of the caves. We took the New Entrance Tour. As we were descending into the cave, Emmanuelle and Pascal decided that it was not for them, so they immediately turned around and went back up to the opening where they needed to wait for a bus to take them back to the visitor’s center. Later, when the rest of us got all the way to the bottom and were in this large spacious area, one in our group was crying. Laurence wanted to go back out. She was hyperventilating and making her children upset. Unfortunately for her, they were already too far into the cave to be able to walk back. They had to continue all the way through. She survived, but was very upset the whole time.

Later that evening we played Mini-Golf and stopped at the Subway in Cave City to have a sandwich. They also did some grocery shopping at the gas station for breakfast items for the morning.