corvettes and caves

Friday morning we drove to Bowling Green, Kentucky. For the uninitiated...this is the location of both the Corvette Assembly Plant and the National Corvette Museum.

Doesn't this sound like the perfect place for a family gathering? Tracy's mom and brother (huge car fans and co-owners of a '72 red vette with t-top) drove up from the Carolinas to meet us for supper. We were up bright and early Saturday morning to arrive at the museum for opening time.

This is one of those places where God tests my character and reminds me not to covet. Where do you cross that fine line beyond just having a healthy appreciation for a work of art and performance?

Let's just say that we had a great time that was over far too soon.

We said goodbye to Tracy's family and headed about 30 miles north to visit Diamond Caverns. At first 6 year old Seth said, "That looks creepy...I think I'm going to be afraid." But our hour long journey through this cave (that was discovered in the 1800's) was a cool experience. The kids really liked the cave spiders and these gi-normous underground crickets that were about 4 inches long with huge legs! To be more specific they liked them from about 5 feet away...any closer than that gives you the heegee-beegee's.

I asked our tour guide if he had any funny experiences to share. He said, "Well one time I was leading a group and noticed that we had lost a couple from the back of the line. I asked if anyone had seen what had happened. The people near the back said they had mumbled something about claustrophobia and then took off runnning. Nobody ever saw them again." Now at this point you need to know that the cave system is a labrynth so it wouldn't be easy to find your way out. But our tour guide said, "Apparantly they made it out alive, because at the end of the evening all the cars were gone out of the parking lot!"

When I pressed for more stories, he did remember a time when he was leading a group through a narrow passage and an overweight gentleman literally got stuck. He said they pulled and tugged and finally got him free. I commented on the fact that they closed the onsight restaurant recently. I asked, "Was there any connection?"

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving up to Cinncinnati. Tracy had found an awesome online website deal on a luxurious hotel that made us feel pretty pampered (and was only about $10 more than the old and rundown smokey joint we had stayed in the night before). We spent the evening in the pool turning our fingers to prunes.

I can't wait to tell you about our church visits in Cincinnati...but I guess it will have to wait till tomorrow.