Uh Oh! Snow!

The mere fact that I am sitting in Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, IN A SNOW STORM is somewhat indicative to me (and perhaps you as you read this) that the plan to follow spring north as far as Pennsylvania has a few flaws. Well, at least one for sure: we somehow got ahead of the Spring we hoped to follow. I do suppose it's a tad better than the band of violent weather including tornadoes that passed through where we were camped in Tennessee the other night though. Actually, this IS Spring in the mid-Atlantic states which is why the home base is Florida for now. Usually warm in winter. Seldom quite cool even in winter. And never with the snow already!!!
But every thing that happens on the trip adds to the mystery and the memory of travel, so I guess it’s all good- even if some days it doesn’t feel that way. Kentucky has been lovely from a scenic point of view. It lives up to the blue grass/rolling hill horse country reputation in full. The horse farms are for the most part very large and perfectly manicured. Lexington is to Kentucky what Palm Beach is to Florida- a visual presentation of what big money can do with a place.
Now if we could just get some heat. Only yesterday we walked a mile some 300 feet underground at Mammoth Caves just north of Bowling Green. The temperature in the cave was 54 degrees. From previous experience one goes into a cave for two reasons : to see what’s there, and to cool off. Only yesterday, that cave was about the warmest place we could find- considerably warmer that the outdoor temp and for sure out of the wind. As sometimes happens out here on the journey, there was a divergence of opinions on the experience. At 5’ 6 inches, Marilyn walked upright for much of the distance underground; at 6’3” I did the tour like a walking stick with a crook a third the way down from the handle and a twist at the bottom. You decide which of us felt the better about the 2 hours it took to tour the cave…
I didn’t take any pictures in the cave. No matter how interesting (or not) a cave is, they don’t photograph well. Even the postcards in the gift shop at the National Park that includes all the caves were disappointing. At least we saved 50 cents! That pays for about 1 mile of the trip. You’ll just have to use your imagination. The best feature in the cave is called “Frozen Niagra.” See what you can do to conjure that up. And no I didn’t say, “Frozen Viagra!”
Cave country, horse country, yes, but there was cowboy humor here as well. I haven’t seen something like this since I was 10 years old and my family was crossing the Sierra Madres in Mexico en route to Mexico City . Then, a cow on a steep portion of the mountain roadway got smacked by a big truck on the way up the mountain. The truck wasn’t about to stop or down shift and that cow had become rather stubborn in its own right. As it charged up the mountain, after being “bumped” a good one, straight for our vehicle, we all burst into hysterical laughter. To this day, I can’t understand why that was more funny than terrifying, since there were no guardrails at that point and the sheer drop off the edge was about 800 feet. This time, an escapee (as in cow, not as in full time RVer) was dashing down the pike in front of us on the way to the park- zigging and zagging and doing unpredictable lane changes without ever signaling. It was the best treat of the day for me and there was no charge for admission. I guess the National Park system just decided to throw that entertainment in with our season pass which we purchased at Padre Island back when we were in Texas.
Judging from the NOAA weather report we hear on the Sirius satellite radio in the coach, we are running about a week or so ahead of Spring now, but we are still on track to make it to Hershey, PA by April 9th, which was the plan all along. If Spring does catch up with us soon, that would be a welcome happening before heading west across the northern US states before heading into Canada somewhere in Montana- on the way to Alaska!