Our tIme in Kentucky ....

There seems to be so much that has happened in Kentucky since we got here 3 days ago, that I'll just give a quick overview of our adventures.

Before we left Indianapolis, we went to the NCAA Hall of Champions. Russ was the most excited about this, as he's the sports expert in our family. But the boys are learning quickly. There were many tributes to the accomplishments of the college athletes across the country. We also got a chance to interact with computer generated or actual simulated sports equipment: Skis, high jump, basketball, track, and soccer. We saw how Fresno State's National Championships were acknowledged in Baseball and Softball.

We drove to the southern border of Indiana to look at the Fossil Beds at the Falls of the Ohio River. Along the banks of the Ohio River, there were stone layers exposed revealing marine fossils. It wasn't spectacular, but it was interesting. It seemed to me more like flat tide pools with a few fossilized imprints when you looked closely.

We've try to eat at places that we can't, find at home, preferable ones that aren't chains, although we visited White Castle Hamburgers, and Hardees (the east coast version of Carl's Jr. This first evening in Kentucky, we tried Cracker Barrel (a highly recommended favorite of Russ' family) for the first time. It was homestyle cooking with large portions. It was pretty good, but didn't make it to the top 3 of our best-vacation-restaurant-chart. However, we found ourselves eating there 3 times over the course of the next few days.

On Thursday, we went to the birthplace and then the childhood home of Abraham Lincoln. It seems 3 states claim him as their own. Kentucky, because he was born here, Indiana, because he spent his formative years there, and Illinois, because that's where he started his law practice and political career. It's also called the "LAND OF LINCOLN" There was an interesting Abraham Lincoln museum in the area, and it had wax figures depicting the stages of his life. There were also letters and artifacts from his time period.
Since these were close to Elizabethtown, where we were staying, we had a little time in the evening to go to a Coca Cola museum. There had been a bottling plant here, and the owners started this from their own collection of Coca Cola memorabilia. It was fun seeing everything from antiques, to dispensers, to advertisements, and promotional items. Jonathan liked the Coke R2D2 best. It was a walk down memory lane for us (Russ and Peggy). We even got a Cherry Coke the old fashioned way for 10 cents at the soda fountain.

Finally, on this day, we drove out to Fort Knox. We knew that we couldn't get close to it, but just wanted to take a few pictures of it from a distance to document that we were so-close-yet-so-far from all the gold. And no, they don't give free samples.