Kentucky, Tennessee Friends & Family

 21 June        Carlyle, IL - Taylorsville, KY       267 miles     6 hours

We're here in this area mainly to visit family. I have cousins that have moved to the area along with my Uncle and Auntie. We're staying at Taylorsville RV Park. Electric and water sites for 3 nights total $107. 

We drove to Louisville one day and went to Churchill Downs. The guided track tour lasted about 30 minutes and the cost was $36 for both of us. We're not that knowledgeable about horseracing but we really enjoyed this visit. We learned some interesting things on the Kentucky Derby and loved seeing the track where this famous race is run every year. There was a movie in the Great Hall that was really fun to watch on our stools that let us turn to see the film all around us. 

Next we drove over to Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. The tour and museum was $44 for both of us. We got to walk through the factory where they are actively making baseball bats which was pretty neat. The tour of the actual working factory follows a short video detailing where and how trees are chosen to make bats from. You see the actual crafting of the bats and the difference between those sold in Sporting Goods stores and those the pros purchase. Such a neat process to see. Excellent tour and information of how bats are made. 

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My cousin Darnell and her husband Roger has a beautiful home in Fisherville, Kentucky. We had dinner two nights at Darnell's. On the first night her brother Rudy and his wife Rachel drove over from Buckner to have dinner with us. Was so nice to visit and catch up on everything. 

Uncle Bobby is in a rehab center and we got to visit him. He's doing okay and looks pretty good. Hopefully he will be able to come home soon. Just grateful that we could spend some time with him. 

24 June     Taylorsville, KY - Cave City, KY

Cave Country RV Campground is a pretty nice RV park close to Mammoth Cave National Park. We paid $210 for four nights, that's with a Good Sam Discount. Very well maintained park with a small pool. Lots of kids so we had to time it right when we wanted to jump in.

On our second night here, a big storm blew through the area. Wind gusts up to70mph, pretty scary. We slept with all the  slides in.

Mammoth Cave National Park was pretty awesome. There's other things to do besides the cave. We went for a hike on the Green River Bluffs Trail and a bike ride that went all over the park. 

A ferry crossing the river

At 420 miles, Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. There are a lot of different cave tours available. We did the self guided cave tour, $8 per person. These tours are very busy. Need to plan in advance. Most of the tours were sold out when we checked. We enjoyed the tour we chose. 

28 June     Cave City, KY - Dandridge, TN     275 miles    6 hours 30 minutes

 Moochdocking for a week at Mark & Julia's in Dandridge, Tennessee. We were here two years ago when they first moved here. Beautiful home on the lake. On the first night, Mark was feeling sick so he didn't join us for dinner. Next day we found out he tested for covid...bummer! 

He planned to have Joe help him build his gazebo by the pool so this really set the project back. 

We went to Douglas Dam and explored the area. Took a short walk around the bottom, was planning to do a nice hike but it was too hot. Beautiful views from the scenic point on top of a hill. We picked up lunch at the Dam Store. We shared a burger and chicken strips, both were excellent. 

A little hazy from the Canada fires

We spent the week at Mark & Julia's  doing little projects and spent a lot of time at their pool. No kids jumping all over the place. We took a ride on their pontoon and watched the boat parade on the 4th of July. We met some of their friends and just had a good time, very relaxing. We did run into a problem with one of our jacks but got that taken care of. 

Mark & Julia plan to meet us in Maine in a couple of months. We're looking forward to that. 

6 July     Dandridge, TN - Roanoke, VA      235 miles     5 hours

 We spent the night boondocking in the Camping World parking lot. We picked up some things in the store and went out to dinner at Bella Pizza Italian Restaurant. Our dinner was excellent and of course, we over did it. 

7 July     Roanoke, VA - Grantville, PA       298 miles      5 hours 45 minutes

Another night boondocking and this was a good one. Hollywood Casino is located in Grantville, Pennsylvania. A huge casino with almost all table games, they also have a racetrack. 

The parking lot was huge, level, and pretty quiet. There were a few other RV's camping overnight. 

We went to the racetrack, this was a first for us. Besides horse racing, there were camels and ostrich races. We missed the ostrich race but saw the camels....so funny! We had a good time at this casino. Played a little blackjack. Joe won some, I lost some....it evens out in the end.