Realizing we hadn’t seen our Alabama friends Louis and Lisa since June 2022, and that we’d not yet seen the lake house they purchased last year, we decided to jump from lake to lake by heading straight south, through Kentucky and Tennessee, to Pell City, Alabama. Good reason for a road trip (we even took the interstate!), but you know we had to find stuff along the way.
The I-65 route took us right past Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky (and our tushes prefer 3-4 hours in the car over 8-9), so we stopped for a tour and to purchase our Lifetime Senior National Parks Passes – grey hair can have its advantages. Discounts!
During the two-hour tour of the cave, guess what we discovered? Mammoth Cave is, well, HUGE. As a cave, it’s also really, well, dark. It’s difficult to quickly get good pictures in the dark while trying to keep up with the group of “strangers, underground, in the middle of nowhere Kentucky,” as our guide so eloquently put it. Our little two-mile tour showed only a smidgen of the more than 420 miles of passages, in which we did not want to be left behind.
The next day, after having successfully taken a cold walk in an absolutely dark cave, then sleeping in Cave City, we continued on “down the highway.” We zipped along through Kentucky and Tennessee, until Susie decided she had no desire to go through Birmingham proper – apparently seven years of commuting there was enough – so she mapped another route to Pell City, getting us off the interstate and returning to our M.O. of taking the backroads.
Along the way we passed through Blount County, the “Covered Bridge Capital of Alabama,” where three of the state’s thirteen covered bridges are located. One was very near our route. EEERRRRR! Short detour! Gee, does anyone believe Susie didn’t know it was there? Ha!
We finally arrived to join Louis and Lisa at their fantastic lake house.
What a view!
Hugs all around. Tour of the house and grounds. And then the catch-up time was on!
When he learned how close we were, our eldest son, Tate, drove over from Atlanta, making a pleasant weekend even better!
Louis and Lisa, thanks again for the friendship, hospitality, good food, and all-around great time! Oh, and for whooping us at the new card game you taught us, Kings in the Corner. We’ll have to practice up for next time!
Our Travels 