National Corvette Museum; Plant Tour; Old Friends Visit (Bowling Green, KY)

Fair warning – Lots of cool pictures today!  As I mentioned at the end of my last post, an old Army buddy stopped by for a quick visit when he heard we were in the area and was passing through.  We ended up visiting the National Corvette Museum and took the Corvette Plant tour together.  Follow along…

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Gary Fejes and David Hobden in front of the Urban Escape Vehicle.

I first met Gary Fejes when he was a Private First Class (PFC) and I was a Sergeant (SGT).  I dug up this old photo (below) that was taken in Grafenwöhr Germany back in the mid-80’s.

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(L to R) PFC Fejes, SGT Hobden, SPC Soop, CW2 Williams

Gary has stayed in touch over the years and we’ve gotten together a few times.  We determined after looking through some old albums that other visits over the years were in 1990, 2002, and 2008.  Here’s Gary and his wife Kitty (below) visiting us in Colorado Springs back in 2008.

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Gary & Kitty in Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs, CO (2008).
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Self, Kitty & Gary at the house in Colorado Springs (2008).
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Kitty & Gary on our ATV in the Colorado Mountains (2008).

Gary & Kitty were returning from a trip to Alabama and driving back to their home in Pennsylvania when they saw we were in Bowling Green, KY so they coordinated to stop by and stay overnight with us.  The girls (Stilla, Kitty and Joleen) went out shopping and ‘antiquing’ while Gary and I decided to visit the National Corvette Museum here in Bowling Green, KY.

Hope you enjoy the tour as much as we did:

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Link to the National Corvette Museum website (Here) to learn more.

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Gary and I paid an entrance fee of $16 each for both the museum and the separate plant tour.  The assembly plant is across the highway from the museum and tours are scheduled throughout the day.  Our plant tour was scheduled for later in the day so we ended up quickly touring the museum until it was time for the plant tour.  After the plant tour (no photos were allowed) we returned again to finish up the museum.

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The infamous sinkhole:

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Here’s some cars that narrowly escaped the sinkhole.  Notice the cave-in outlined in red and yellow tape on the floor:

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The last section of the museum that we toured wasn’t just corvettes…  They keep dedicated space here for exhibits that get changed out every so often or travel around the country.

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Wow!  The museum tour was awesome, we probably spent 3-4 hours inside  not including the hour where we went over to the assembly plant for our scheduled tour halfway through.

And the assembly plant tour was super cool too!  Unfortunately they don’t allow any photos inside the plant.  The plant tour takes about an hour and you end up walking a mile through the facility.  Link (Here) to learn more about the assembly plant.  It was fascinating.

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Corvette assembly plant (no photos allowed inside).
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Corvette assembly plant (no photos allowed inside).

After the awesome plant tour, we returned to the museum to have lunch at the Corvette Cafe and finish our walk-thru.  I already included all the museum tour pics above.

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Before Gary & I returned to the house to see what the girls had been up to for the day, we also stopped to visit Art’s Corvette (←link).  This showroom full of cars for sale is conveniently located right next to the Corvette Museum but is not associated with the museum.  Entrance fee was $5.

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What a great car day!  I suppose that’s enough automotive-related photos for one blog post 🙂  Hope you enjoyed the tour(s).

We said our farewells to Gary & Kitty and they continued their drive back home to Pennsylvania.  It was great catching up, hope to see you again soon Gary & Kitty!  Hopefully we can make it to PA one of these days.

Check back later for updates on the house renovation and I’ve been looking at small scooters to add to the Urban Escape Vehicle fleet…