Tag Archives: Bowling Green

Kentucky

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…

Kentucky

Some Local Sites & Friends/Family Visits (Bowling Green, KY)

We’re still parked at our daughter Joleen’s house in Bowling Green, KY and it looks like we might be here for a little while to help out with their remodeling projects on their new (to them) house.

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As I mentioned in my last post, Dylan’s father drove all the way from Colorado Springs, CO for a quick visit to drop off another load of Dylan & Joleen’s “stuff” along with a new puppy.

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(L to R) Stilla, Joleen, Dylan, and Jeff.

Before we got to work on house painting and kitchen remodel projects, we took some time while Jeff was here to visit a couple local attractions.  Here we are checking out Aviation Heritage Park…

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And we also took a nice walking trail along Lost River Cave…

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(L to R) Jeff, Joleen, Stilla, Dylan at the Lost River Cave entrance on the Cave Creek trail.

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We’ll have to come back here again later for the Lost River Cave Boat Tour, it sounds pretty fun.  But we didn’t have time today.

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Joleen & Dylan at the Lost River Cave entrance.

We also did a drive-by of the local amusement park.  Check out the Beech Bend Amusement Park website.  We’ll have to come by here again later when we have more time for a day of fun.  They also have a huge campground here that we checked out for future reference.  It looked really nice, check out the campground website.

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We also stopped to watch the go-karts race at the National Corvette Museum (NCM) Motor Sports Park.  That looked like fun…

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Dylan’s father Jeff only had a couple days here before he had to get back to work in Colorado Springs.  On Sunday evening we were invited to Dylan’s boss’s house for some grilled steaks and salmon.  Jim and his wife Dana have a beautiful home nearby.  Here we are (below) in Jim’s cool ‘man-cave’ enjoying some of his home-brew beer before we had an awesome dinner.  Thanks Jim & Dana!

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(L to R) Jim, Joleen, Stilla, Jeff, and Dylan.

When we weren’t running around town, we were able to get a little bit done on the house.  Here’s one of the doors I prepped and painted (below).

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And to give you an idea of what’s ahead – here’s a pic (below) of the kitchen ceiling where the old cabinets were mounted.  My challenge will be to fix the holes and numerous old paint lines so we don’t have to redo the whole ceiling.  The new cabinets don’t go all the way up to the ceiling like the old ones.  Keep checking the blog to see if I’m successful.

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And also, check back later for my next post…  We had another old Army buddy and his wife (Gary & Kitty) stop by for a quick visit (Tuesday thru Wednesday) while they traveled through on their way home to Pennsylvania.  Kitty went shopping with the girls while Gary and I toured the National Corvette Museum and took the Plant Tour.  Lots of pictures… too many for this post.

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Gary Fejes and I posing in front of the Urban Escape Vehicle in Bowling Green, KY.
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Coming soon… check out my next blog post…
Kentucky

Moochdocking at Dear Daughter’s House (Bowling Green, KY)

We traveled about 170 miles from the US Space & Rocket Center to Bowling Green, KY on Friday to arrive at our youngest daughter’s house.

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We pulled into Joleen & Dylan’s circular driveway around 5PM after a scenic and uneventful drive.  We stopped at another Pilot/Flying J at the Kentucky border to top off the fuel tank with 67 gallons of diesel for $160.  It looks like we’re only getting around 7.5 miles to the gallon with all the recent hills we’ve been pulling.

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Stilla was very glad to see Joleen who moved here from Colorado Springs to Bowling Green back in February.  Joleen got engaged (last Christmas) to her high school sweetheart Dylan after dating for the last 7 years.  Dylan got a job offer here that prompted their relocation.

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They just purchased a nice house on the outskirts of Bowling Green and are doing extensive renovations.  I’m sure we’ll be offering a lot of assistance.  The kitchen is currently torn apart and a beautiful new tile floor has been installed,  New cabinets and granite countertops are next.

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The driveway is rather sloped where we parked to be near the newly installed 50 Amp power outlet.  We heard that Dylan had to do some extensive low-crawling underneath the house in order to get it hooked up.  Thanks Dylan!  Due to the slope of the driveway, we promptly put a couple holes in the asphalt drive with the rear jacks trying to get the whole rear of the Coach raised up.  Sorry about that 🙂  We’ll find some larger blocks or boards to put under the jacks and maybe we can get completely level.  Surprisingly, we were able to get the satellite dish to connect through the trees next to us.

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Unfortunately, our power cord was too short to reach the new 50 Amp outlet so Dylan’s new boss offered to make us an extension cord.  Here’s Jim along with friend/co-worker Ed (below) putting a 50 Amp extension cord together.  Thanks Jim and Ed!

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And so, here we are in beautiful green Bowling Green.  We’ll moochdock here for a while visiting and helping out around the new house.  We’ve already gotten a couple of quick tours around town and stopped by to check out all the Corvettes during the annual National Corvette & Chevy Invitiational.  We also did drive-bys at Western Kentucky University (WKU), Beech Bend Amusement Park, the National Corvette Museum, and adjacent NCM Motorsports Park.  Lots of cool sites to visit here…

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Dylan’s fatherJeff also arrived by pickup truck on Saturday with another load of their “stuff” and a new puppy from Colorado Springs.  Now they’ll have 3 large dogs to take care of.  Jeff has to be back at work on Tuesday, so we’ll just do some socializing before we get to work on the house.  Stay tuned…

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Joleen and her new puppy.