![\"110804709tb](\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110804709tb-Family-in-van.jpg\" "\\"110804709tb")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis is the view you would have if you rode in the trunk of our van.<\/em><\/p>\n Last night I brought the map in and was looking over our route again. I noticed that we were passing pretty close to the birthplace and childhood home of Abraham Lincoln. Already on this trip we visited the Lincoln Memorial and saw Ford’s Theater. We had studied the Civil War and visited the site of the Gettysburg Address. So it seemed quite appropriate that we make a slight detour to see these important places in Lincoln’s life.<\/p>\n I also noticed on our map that we were passing close to Mammoth Cave National Park. I had never heard of this site until about a year ago when my parents visited us shortly after they went on a tour here. They were impressed and encouraged us to go. It didn’t work out in last year’s schedule but here it sat perfectly along our route AND on a free afternoon. I knew our kids would like caves. And thus was born our “bonus stops” of the trip. <\/p>\n We considered it a happy providence that the “Adventures in Odyssey” that we just happened to listen to in the hour before we arrived at Lincoln’s boyhood home was about Lincoln. We had no idea that this was coming and it was a special treat.<\/p>\n Kelli, Bethany, and Jonathan in a cabin at Lincoln’s boyhood home<\/em><\/p>\n The cabin located at “Lincoln’s Boyhood Home” belonged to a friend of the Lincolns, and the cabin over which a monument is built at his birthplace has been determined to not have belonged to the Lincolns. (This sounds a bit like the holy sites in the Middle East.) But while we couldn’t get excited about “this is the very wall where he leaned,” we enjoyed the opportunity to see the area, study the exhibits, and think more about what a great man Lincoln was.<\/p>\n This Neo-Classical building surrounds a cabin from the early 1800s.<\/em><\/p>\n We left Lincoln’s birthplace at 2:49 and I told the kids that we would arrive at Mammoth Caves before we left. In fact, I showed them on the GPS that our scheduled arrival time was 2:42. That mystified them a bit and they tried to come up with various solutions for a while. They figured it out when they saw the sign indicating that we were crossing into the Central Time Zone. I doubt they ‘ll ever forget the day when they arrived at a place before they even departed!<\/p>\n Mammoth Cave was large and impressive. Kelli was not so interested in a two-hour tour underground and so she stayed with Jonathan while I took the kids deep into the heart of the earth on a guided tour with two National Park rangers. I forget all of the facts and figures, but this cave is hundreds of miles long and parts of it are filled with beautiful formations. Everyone enjoyed the trek, though I confess I was a bit unnerved at a few places where we were suspended high above the This section of the cave is dubbed “New York Subway.” I guess that makes twice on this vacation!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are stalactites and stalagmites and lots of other cool geology things.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n “Frozen Niagara” is one of the highlights of Mammoth Cave.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n It’s tough taking photos underground with limited light.<\/em><\/p>\n Our last night on the road is in Nashville. We ‘ll leave early in the morning for our long drive home, having seen nothing in this city. But I think today’s “bonus stops” were well worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was planning this trip, I thought it would be a bit too much to drive 17 hours (plus stops) from Charleston to home. Along the way is Nashville and since no one in our family has spent any time there, I thought it would work out well to cut the driving into two\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nground<\/strike> floor of the cave.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n