Earlier in the year we had planned this trip for the week after Christmas, but decided to cancel because of reasons I can’t even remember as I type this. As we were sitting around one evening putting up Christmas decorations we changed our mine again and decided to make the trip after all.
We headed out the day after Christmas and drove to St. Louis Missouri where we would start the world wind tour at the Gateway Arches. It’s funny because the day before we were going to leave I read an article that ranked St Louis as the top dangerous city in America. It made me laugh as I live in Baton Rouge which every one knows is definitely not a safe place to live. We woke up the next morning to cold and rain and made the 3-4 block walk to the arches from our hotel. We had no problems getting there as the streets were almost deserted. The arches are quite impressive. How they got the arch to connect in the middle is amazing. I don’t know if we could build a structure like this today for cost alone being a big factor. It looks like it was fabricated from sheets of stainless steel. You can ride to the top but we didn’t go as the elevator/ tram is a bit too claustrophobic for me. After checking the arch out, we hit the visitor center and looked at the history of the arch and we were good to go. You could spend more time here, but we had seen enough and needed to get on the road. We then drove to Bowling Green Kentucky where we would spend the night and then go to Bowling by Mammoth Cave National Park in the morning. This park is definitely worth going to as the cave system is incredible. It travels for more than 400 miles underneath the ground. The history and geology that make up of the cave are very interesting. It was used for salt peter during the civil war and this was its claim to games before it became a tourist destination. We went on the history tour but you really don’t get to see some of the major formations on this tour. We booked too late and this was all they had so we took it. I would highly recommend visiting this park. We did make a small hike on one of the trails but it was pretty cold so we didn’t go too far as we were constrained by the starting time of the tour. We stayed until lunch and ate in our car then got in the road and drove to Ashland Kentucky. From Ashland, we drove to West Virginia and visited New River Gorge National Park. We did make a 3 mile hike here that ends with a point over looking the gorge and a view of the bridge that crosses the gorge. This was a nice place and the views are beautiful. It just a one day park in my view especially in winter, but you could make it a two day visit with a rafting or kayak trip during the warmer months. From this park we drove to Charlotte North Carolina where we would spend the night before headed to Congaree National Park in South Carolina in the morning. This park is comprised of some of the last virgin timber in North America. The trees in this place are spectacular. There is a boardwalk hike we made ,but because of flooding you could only go halfway. These types of forest stretched from the Carolinas to Texas before they were cut for timber and development. This was a great park but again you can knock it out in one day.
Over all we had a great time and saw a lot of our beautiful country. We drove through 11 states and put about 2500 miles on the greatest 2014 Honda Pilot ever made. We were able to save a good bit of money by staying at hotels with free breakfast and we brought food to eat for lunch everyday. We did eat out at night and had some really great Greek, Mexican, and Italian food. This calzone place in St. Louis was so good we came home and replicated what we had ate and made calzones at the house. They weren’t as good but did bring back some wonderful food memories.
We headed out the day after Christmas and drove to St. Louis Missouri where we would start the world wind tour at the Gateway Arches. It’s funny because the day before we were going to leave I read an article that ranked St Louis as the top dangerous city in America. It made me laugh as I live in Baton Rouge which every one knows is definitely not a safe place to live. We woke up the next morning to cold and rain and made the 3-4 block walk to the arches from our hotel. We had no problems getting there as the streets were almost deserted. The arches are quite impressive. How they got the arch to connect in the middle is amazing. I don’t know if we could build a structure like this today for cost alone being a big factor. It looks like it was fabricated from sheets of stainless steel. You can ride to the top but we didn’t go as the elevator/ tram is a bit too claustrophobic for me. After checking the arch out, we hit the visitor center and looked at the history of the arch and we were good to go. You could spend more time here, but we had seen enough and needed to get on the road. We then drove to Bowling Green Kentucky where we would spend the night and then go to Bowling by Mammoth Cave National Park in the morning. This park is definitely worth going to as the cave system is incredible. It travels for more than 400 miles underneath the ground. The history and geology that make up of the cave are very interesting. It was used for salt peter during the civil war and this was its claim to games before it became a tourist destination. We went on the history tour but you really don’t get to see some of the major formations on this tour. We booked too late and this was all they had so we took it. I would highly recommend visiting this park. We did make a small hike on one of the trails but it was pretty cold so we didn’t go too far as we were constrained by the starting time of the tour. We stayed until lunch and ate in our car then got in the road and drove to Ashland Kentucky. From Ashland, we drove to West Virginia and visited New River Gorge National Park. We did make a 3 mile hike here that ends with a point over looking the gorge and a view of the bridge that crosses the gorge. This was a nice place and the views are beautiful. It just a one day park in my view especially in winter, but you could make it a two day visit with a rafting or kayak trip during the warmer months. From this park we drove to Charlotte North Carolina where we would spend the night before headed to Congaree National Park in South Carolina in the morning. This park is comprised of some of the last virgin timber in North America. The trees in this place are spectacular. There is a boardwalk hike we made ,but because of flooding you could only go halfway. These types of forest stretched from the Carolinas to Texas before they were cut for timber and development. This was a great park but again you can knock it out in one day.
Over all we had a great time and saw a lot of our beautiful country. We drove through 11 states and put about 2500 miles on the greatest 2014 Honda Pilot ever made. We were able to save a good bit of money by staying at hotels with free breakfast and we brought food to eat for lunch everyday. We did eat out at night and had some really great Greek, Mexican, and Italian food. This calzone place in St. Louis was so good we came home and replicated what we had ate and made calzones at the house. They weren’t as good but did bring back some wonderful food memories.
