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Strange Folks Traveling Together - Also Known As The T@b Blue Ridge Rally!!!


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I'm loving all the pictures - and what beautiful campgrounds you've been staying at!!! Ah... I swear, the trees speak to me. I can almost hear the rustling of the leaves and the sounds of a creek running not-too-far-away. What a wonderful adventure!

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Thursday morning dawned bright and clear and we were off on the road again.

Today's drive was much more pleasant on a rural US Highway

Oh, and we were down to 7, as one couple had to get back home to New York:

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Our next stop is the National Corvette Museum

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We once again had a picnic in the parking lot......

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And then we took the museum tour.....

Pictures coming next

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There are lots of beautiful cars in the Museum:

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The "first" Corvette according to the plaque

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They had to quickly change the logo at the last minute

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A special muscle car exhibit

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You can take delivery of your custom ordered Corvette right there at the museum

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We then went over to the GM plant across the highway and took the assembly plant tour

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The tour was VERY interesting, but no cameras, no phones, no bags allowed.

Some factoids though. It takes about 30 hours for a Corvette to go the length of the assembly line.

About 8 Corvettes per hour.

In addition to Museum delivery, you can also go to Michigan and help assemble your engine, then come to factory and help assemble your Corvette.

The Corvettes start on two lines. One line builds the body, while the other line simultaneously builds the drive train and chassi, then the two lines merge with the body coming directly onto the correct drive train.

The museum tour and factory tour are VERY reasonably priced and well worth and afternoon. $10 for the Museum tour and $8 for the factory tour. Ask about discounts too.

Another factoid. There is a caste system in the parking lot, not by salary, but by what type of vehicle you drive.

Corvettes get to park up front

Other GM vehicles park in the next lot

Other American vehicles park a little further out

And if you drive a foreign car as a GM employee, then you have to park waaaaaaay out there.

After the factory tour, we lost another member of our group. He had to get on home back to South Florida:

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Coming next - Caves!!!

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OK, to continue on (gotta get this finished before the Stoned Mountain trip pics drown me out!!!)

After the tours we headed up to Cave City, KY to Cave Country RV Park.

VERY CLEAN, VERY NICE FOLKS!!! Bring your own shade!!!

http://www.cavecountryrv.com/

We got set up and had a mini potluck for dinner that evening, and as always, got a fire going and the happy hour going.

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We had a bit of a snag on the happy hour though, we were in a dry county!!!! The closest was back in Bowling Green, so somebody generously went on a liquor run!!

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The next day, we all head to Mammoth Cave Visitors center to sign up for various cave tours.

Waiting for our tour:

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A few rules at the entrance:

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Inside the cave.

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I was amazed at the lack of color and was told, the color you see in cave pictures is the lights they use inside the cave. Mammoth cave NP does not "color" their caves.

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This was down a pathway that was not on our tour

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The next day, I had planned to do something else touristy, and was really looking to do something high on the "cheesy" factor, but somehow lost the energy to go anywhere. A group of us went to the Mammoth Cave Lodge and had breakfast at the restaurant, but then I came back to the camper and just watched movies all day.

This was our final night as a group, so we had a potluck and celebrated Derby Day!!

We gathered in the clubhouse and watched the Kentucky Derby.

Everybody pitched in a few bucks for random drawings on the horses and I drew the winner, Animal Kingdom!!! $19 bucks richer :-)

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Carol, where was your derby hat?? :popo:

Great updates! I really like Mammoth Caves...been a few years since we've been there.

Yeah, I know I should have worn a hat. One of the ladies knocked on my door while I was watchin (napping through) old movies and asked if I wanted to go hat shopping and I declined. It TOTALLY went over my head that Derby Day needed a Derby Hat.

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This has been an awesome trip report! I would love to do a trip like that with friends! One of my gf's and I took our boys to Kentucky. We did the corvette museum too, the boys enjoyed it. We ran into the dry county issue also. My friend is more of a drinker than me, so we headed to Louisville. That was a great side trip as we ended up taking the boys to Kentucky Kingdom. That whole area is really nice.

Your pictures are great, it makes me feel as if we were along with you!

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Thanks for all the kind words!! This trip WAS a blast and now it's time to wrap it up.

Sunday morning dawned HOT. (Of course it's the hottest day of the trip when I have to pack up).

All the other folks got out pretty early as they had longer drives home or to other destinations. (One couple still had about 3 more weeks of travel ahead of them!!)

I only had about 3 hours of driving, so I took my time. I packed up slowly and cleaned as I went, did laundry, had lunch, took a shower, and finally pulled out about 1:30 that afternoon.

Got home, put the T@B away, and watched the finale of Amazing Race!!!!

Here are the final pictures of the rest of the campers I didn't show in my report. (I don't wanna leave anyone out!!)

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I added a state to my camping map, Virginia!!

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Some stats

I camped in 5 states in 6 different campgrounds for 12 nights and traveled approximately 1350 miles, took over 600 pictures and had a GREAT time and got almost 15 MPG by "goin a little slower on teardrop time"

I ate some of the best cookin there was, saw some beautiful sites and made lots of new friends and got to know old friends a lot better.

Also, if you want to see another perspective on this trip check out:

http://web.me.com/sharonsigmon/Postcards/Blog/Entries/2011/4/24_Time_For_The_blue_Ridge_Rally.html

Start with the above entry and move forward. Sharon managed to post every evening!!!

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I don't get it. All I am seeing is red x's?? Is anyone else seeing pictures on my final post?? I have done NOTHING different than on any other post. I didn't change my album on photobucket or anything??

When I go to edit, I can't see the code for the pictures either, so can't tell what I did wrong!!!!

Somebody help!!!!!

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One last postscript. On my drive home, for the last 20 miles I was driving through one of the hardest hit tornado areas near Huntsville. I was just FLABBERGASTED at all the destruction I saw a week & 1/2 later. Trees and power poles everywhere, houses off their foundation, one of our local TV station doppler radar domes GONE. We were only about 3 or 4 miles southeast of being severely hit ourselves. I truly felt blessed that my entire family missed major damage and only had to deal with being without power for a few days.

My parents had the most damage in that they lost some huge trees and a good bit of their wooden fence.

I also feel blessed that our family had the resources to relocate to places that did have power. Some other friends, extended family did not have those resources, and had to stay at home without power. We were blessed to be able to offer them Rick's hotel room for showers, charging phones, etc.

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