Southwest 2021:
Day 23 - Heading Home


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Southwest 2021: [Day 1 - Missouri] [Day 2 - Kansas] [Day 3 - Kansas] [Day 4 - Ft. Collins] [Day 5 - Perry] [Day 6 - Salt Lake City] [Day 7 - Salt Lake City] [Day 8 - Salt Lake City] [Day 9 - Goblin Valley] [Day 10 - Torrey] [Day 11 - Kodachrome Basin] [Day 12 - Coral Pink Sand Dunes] [Day 13 - Lees Ferry] [Day 14 - Grand Canyon] [Day 15 - Grand Canyon] [Day 16 - Lyman Lake] [Day 17 - Carlsbad] [Day 18 - Davis Mountains] [Day 19 - Marathon] [Day 20 - Arlington] [Day 21 - Hot Springs] [Day 22 - Bowling Green] [Day 23 - Heading Home]

Wednesday, March 10, 2021: Good morning, Kentucky! It was hard to believe we were on the 23rd day of our trip. We had never taken a trip this long before and it was glorious.
Two nights earlier, we had filled our ice cube trays with water from Hot Springs KOA. This had produced the clearest ice cubes our trays had ever made.
We said goodbye to our campsite at 7:30 AM.
We passed the sign for Mammoth Cave National Park. We had visited it back in 2007 and now that we had just been at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, we felt that our cave-based national park collection was now complete.
We found ourselves on a Kentucky Scenic Byway.
We headed to Cave City to work on our collection of Wigwam Villages, having just seen one in Holbrook, Arizona, a week earlier. This is Wigwam Village #2.
It is one of three remaining Wigwam Villages, of seven originally built between 1933 and 1949. We need to get to the one in California before it goes away. (Eight months later, we did!)
Wigwam Village #2 is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. We thought it had closed a couple of years ago so we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was open.
Our route then took us through Hodgenville, Kentucky, ...
... home of the Lincoln Museum and a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
We were on the Lincoln Heritage National Scenic Byway.
We passed the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. The visitor center was currently under renovation for a couple of months.
We were headed to the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven.
We were here to see Kentucky's Merci Train boxcar (left), but we saved it for last.
We were the only visitors in the museum, which was nice. That's what you get for visiting at opening time on a Wednesday during a pandemic.
We aren't huge train fans or anything, but we did enjoy the displays. This included brass buttons from Great American Railroads. Who knew there were so many?
Look at this tiny little Pullman seat! It was a miniature for sales people to use to demonstrate how the chairs pulled out into sleeping berths.
Debbie is fascinated by date nails - nails that have the two-digit year they were created stamped into their heads, effectively documenting when they were added to the railroad.
This is a track inspection car that can be rolled along a train track.
We enjoyed the working model train set that stretched along one entire side of the long room.
Here's a tiny town in the model.
A small sign in the lower right of this picture identified the names on the gravestones in the tiny cemetery.
Behind the museum is a massive train yard.
There were lots of different engines and cars to see, ...
... in various states of repair.
These railroad spikes on the ground reminded us how long ago in our trip we had visited Golden Spike National Monument - was that really 2 1/2 weeks ago?
Here are some more cars.
This Louisville & Nashville engine #770 was in the process of being restored.
It was built in 1942 for war time service.
It was retired in 1968 and donated to the Kentucky Railway Museum.
This freshly-painted compartment had an inventory list embossed on its exterior.
This contraption is probably a spring for the engine.
Finally, we headed to the Merci Train boxcar.
It is in fairly good shape, but it clearly is home to some bird nests toward the top.
Here is the other side. The shields are made of wood and we debated whether or not they were the originals.
A Commonwealth of Kentucky historical marker described the L&N Steam Engine, which we are guessing is still in storage until train trip season starts in a few weeks.
Hmmm, someday we'll have to plan a trip to follow the Bluegrass Parkway for its entire length.
We passed the Jim Beam Booker Noe Plant on our way back to the freeway. It is surrounded by huge green storage buildings filled with bourbon.
Back on the interstate, we stopped for lunch and gas.
While we enjoyed our lunch, a trailer full of horses enjoyed the opportunity to hang their heads out of their windows and eat the hay that was hanging in heavy canvas net bags next to each of them.
By noon, we nearing the bridges over the Ohio River, which means ...
... that we were back home again in Indiana!
As we got close to Indianapolis, we laughed when we noticed that for the first time on our trip, it was no longer sunny. Yes, friends, that is the Bundlings Weather Luck - 23 straight days of great weather, ending when we no longer need it to be nice.
We hit 10,000 miles on the odometer when we hit I-465, making it a 6,000 mile trip.
We were amused to see the NCAA March Madness signs had been put up in our absence. Indianapolis was hosting the entire tournament this year.
We unloaded The Ocho, right down to the floor rugs, and were sad to leave it in storage.
Here's The Ocho's updated travel map with seven additional states on it. Good job, The Ocho!

** THE END **


Southwest 2021: [Day 1 - Missouri] [Day 2 - Kansas] [Day 3 - Kansas] [Day 4 - Ft. Collins] [Day 5 - Perry] [Day 6 - Salt Lake City] [Day 7 - Salt Lake City] [Day 8 - Salt Lake City] [Day 9 - Goblin Valley] [Day 10 - Torrey] [Day 11 - Kodachrome Basin] [Day 12 - Coral Pink Sand Dunes] [Day 13 - Lees Ferry] [Day 14 - Grand Canyon] [Day 15 - Grand Canyon] [Day 16 - Lyman Lake] [Day 17 - Carlsbad] [Day 18 - Davis Mountains] [Day 19 - Marathon] [Day 20 - Arlington] [Day 21 - Hot Springs] [Day 22 - Bowling Green] [Day 23 - Heading Home]

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