3 Generation Roadtrip - Day 4

The last day of our road trip. We stayed the night in Winchester, KY - home of the famous KY ginger ale Ale8One (otherwise known as A Late One). We were not able to go on a factory tour, but we did stop at the company store:

Before leaving town, we stopped at Fort Boonesborough, but didn't go in.  Instead, we found more butterflies and flowers outside:

Continuing on our way home, we were back in WV:

Even though I had been before, my mom and niece had not, so we visited the state capitol. I'm sure I already have lots of photos, but I took some more anyway:

Liberty bell:

My niece running through the halls (just kidding bro...she was very well behaved):

Looking up into the dome:

Oh, Eeyore and Willy were joined by another friend, Ali, who we picked up at the Ale8One company store:

And this, my favorite picture from the trip...look closely between the two tree trunks:

3 Generation Roadtrip - Day 3

To cool things off, we decided to head underground, where it's always 55 degrees:

Again, we had some time to kill before our cave tour, so my niece found entertainment chasing a butterfly.

And me with taking pictures of it:

Yay, finally inside the cave.  We were on quite a large tour, over 100 people:

Look, Grandma is actually in a cave!

My niece and Willy:

Some of the neat formations we saw toward the end of our tour:

This formation was called bacon (even caves are getting in on the latest fads):

Up next, we visited the home where Lincoln was born (supposedly), which isn't too far from Mammoth Cave.  This isn't actually the house, but the protective shelter that famous architect Alexander Pope designed to build around  it:

Here's the log cabin which was inside the shelter. We discovered that it was only a few years ago that they carbon dated the logs and determined that the cabin wasn't quite old enough to be the actual house Lincoln was born in.  It was still pretty old either way, and was found on the property:

Ornate door handles on the structure around the cabin:

And to tie this stop into yesterday's adventures, President Taft was the one who dedicated the opening of this National Historical Park when the protective structure was opened:

Just a little further up the road was where the Lincoln family moved when he was only two years old. This is a re-creation, but the logs are from a childhood friend's house (and he was the childhood friend who saved Lincoln's life one day when they were swimming):

Just some other sights around the park:

Last stop of the day was the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.  The park was closed already, but we still wandered around anyway:

It was very picturesque, like all of the horse farms around Lexington:

My niece greeting one of the horses:

Secretariat statue:

Man o War statue:

...lastly, just a funky tree that was in the park that I liked:

3 Generation Roadtrip - Day 2

We stayed the night outside of Cincinnati, OH.  So we headed to the waterfront to take a paddleboat ride. We had some time to kill before the boat launched, so we wandered around downtown.

Downtown Cincinnati from Newport, KY:

Looking back toward Newport, KY..."Come on Grandma":

The red paddlewheel is the National Steamboat Monument, with Covington, KY in the background:

My niece found some cool relief from the oppressive heat:

Back in Newport, here's a view of our boat...no, not the big one, but the smaller one in the back:

My niece got to drive the boat!

There were some nice houses in Covington...wonder if any of them were my relatives' house when they immigrated here:

The Great American Ball Park of the Cincinnati Reds...with a steamboat built into it:

Cool bridge over the Ohio River:

Is this really the 8th bank then?

The motley crew, toward the end of our boat ride:

It was pretty hot on our side of the boat on the return trip...so we moved inside to the air conditioned level of the boat:

We did some other sightseeing in Cincinnati before we moved on...including visiting the Harriet Beecher Stowe house (it was closed, so we didn't get to go inside):

And President Taft's childhood home...learned so much about him that I didn't know!  Like you probably know he was the only President to also be a Supreme Court Justice...but did you know he's the one who pushed for reforms of the court which included giving the court the ability to choose it's cases?  He was also the first President to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game. And his wife was the one who planted the first cherry trees in DC (around the tidal basin).


It was at Taft's house that Willy the buffalo joined us on our adventure: