In a two day trip that was relatively close to home, we're marking off Kentucky from the 50 states to visit list by staying outside of Bowling Green and checking out the area. Today involved visiting Lost Rive Cave, a park that is run as a non-profit and has preserved one of the most unique caves I've been in. After a short walk through the woods, you load up on a boat and then duck really low through one of the tightest boat squeezes you could imagine. The cave has been used as a resort by a con-man, a Civil War recreation area, a mill, and the supposed not really hide out of Jesse James. The cave has been rescued from being a trash dump area and is lovingly maintained.
The park complex now also hosts a zip line, hiking trails, and a butterfly habitat. All proceeds go back into maintaining the park and employees and preserving the area. The butterfly habitat was fascinating and a good place to get some great pictures. While you're there, pop down the road to Lost River Pizza Co and get a good lunch.
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Illinois' first state park is located almost in downtown Metropolis right on the Ohio. The park has a very nice camp ground and is very modern with a small museum and recreation of the fort that was originally there. The park has some nice hiking and fishing areas.
Rim Rock in the Shawnee National Forest is a wonderful mile long trail that descends a very long flight of stairs through a rocky area that reminded me of Rock City with several sharp corners and squeezes between rocks to a trail that leads to Ox Lot Cave. Ox Lot Cave was used by men timbering the area back in the day to keep their horses and oxen.
Another road trip to Illinois, this time seeing Cave-in-Rock, a cave along the Ohio River that has had rumors of river pirates in its history. The cave is impressive and easy to get to, being far deeper than you'd expect and also cooler even on a hot summer day. Well worth a visit if you're in the area since it's a pretty quick stop and it's a good place to have lunch next to the Ohio
This summer's garden art exhibition at Cheekwood and follow up to their Chihuly exhibit of last year. This art exhibit is made with drawing in parents with children because of the Lego factor. Cheekwood has a beautiful children's garden that is worth going to on its own, but the Lego sculptures are truly fantastic and worth seeing.
Having more time on our full day in Illinois, we headed over to Bell Smith Springs, another rural area that features several hiking trails and a swimming hole. The gravel road to park is bad, but this is clearly an area the locals know. It was covered up and everyone seemed to be at the swimming hole and rowdy. We didn't go the whole way over to that area since there seemed to be a lot of drinking and possibly other illicit activity going on and headed up one of the three trails, Devil's Backbone. This was a nice short little hike past a strange rock formation.
We got done with Metropolis well before lunch, so with plenty of time we headed off to find Garden of the Gods. After an hour long drive we arrived to the heavily visited area. It is well worth it because the views are spectacular and the rock formations are worthy of all the photography devoted to them.
Keep in mind there aren't guard rails and you're more than able to scramble all over every formation there, which can be incredibly dangerous, so use discretion. The area is also very busy so keep in mind all the other tourists.
Stop at the Garden of the Gods Outpost afterwards for a Creamsicle float. It's well worth it.
Metropolis is a quaint little town that realizes its bread and butter is Superman tourism. The whole town can be visited in half a day, but it's adorable that the area has embraced the Man of Steel in every way they can. The most famous landmark is the Superman statue outside of the courthouse, but there are plenty of photo op places around town.
The Lois Lane statue is a few blocks up the road, but the lesser known landmark is the Kryptonite the other direction outside the abandoned Hollywood Museum. There used to be a Daily Planet globe outside of the newspaper, but that sculpture has been moved in front of Lois now since I think the newspaper went out of business.
The Super Museum has plenty of photo ops outside of the building and a wide array of Superman souvenirs inside. The museum itself has gathered just about every collectible item having to do with Superman you can imagine. And I'd forgotten how many shows based on some aspect of the Superman lore there actually were. The sheer volume of STUFF is overwhelming.
One of the ride or dies and I went on a road trip through southern Illinois over the weekend. So many cool places there that I weren't expecting. We stayed maybe 10 minutes away from the Kincaid Mounds, a remote Native American site that is surprisingly untouched for it being so large. I've been to a lot of mound sites and generally the parks or historical societies go overboard trying to make the site a tourist attraction or informative. This site is really just in a field with some signs around it and nothing else, which wouldn't be so surprising except for how large the mounds are. These aren't burial mounds, but I've seen several parks built entirely around town mounds less impressive than this so I was surprised how untouched this site was.
If you wander past the restrooms in the Reagan Plaza on the Gatlinburg strip, you'll see a paved driveway leading up a hill. A short walk up the driveway and you'll see the oldest cemetery in Gatlinburg. This cemetery is part of the Gatlinburg ghost tour and goes steeply up the hill with graves dating back to 1830. One of the more interesting headstones has the first name "Mourning" on it, which is strange to say the least. Some of the other headstones are hand carved. The cemetery isn't noticed by many, but is hardly a stone's throw from the busy main street.
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AuthorA librarian who likes to travel and experience life. CategoriesArchives
June 2022
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