The Great Midwest Trip continues exploring Kentucky and Indiana

I'm interrupting my normal garage sale finds Friday to share with you the final day in our recap of The Great Midwest Trip.  

A two week long trip that started with us flying from Seattle to Indianapolis and driving a rental van for two weeks 1500 miles around the Midwest, exploring my roots and the places of my childhood.  

We visited Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Today I am finishing up a recap of our stop in Kentucky and Indiana. We started our morning in Tennessee and headed in to Mammoth Cave National park for a guided tour. Thankfully we left plenty of time to explore the Kentucky Home store for "pretty stuff" While at Mammoth Cave we took two tours. A self guided tour of the rotunda and a guided tour of the New Entrance. The cave is mammoth and has more than 400 miles of passageways. We explored less than a mile of them. After the caves, we drove up to Louisville and spent some time exploring Churchill Downs home of the Kentucky Derby. We made our way to the Louisville slugger museum and factory tour. I haven't spent a lot of time in Louisville {if ever} but it was surprisingly a very beautiful city. We spent the final days of our trip in Indiana. After several failed attempts in the past to get my family to come to Conner Prairie, I insisted that we visit this time.  Conner Prairie is a living history museum that has become quite interactive for the kids. The kids can take jobs like housekeeper or deputy and perform tasks on a job sheet allowing them to interact with the townsfolk rather than just observe. Conner Prairie has also added a civil war town.  Having grown up in Indiana you think I would have learned about the history and the role that Indiana played in the role, but I did not.   We stayed downtown Indy and had the chance to explore the canal district. What once was a good place to go to get drugs or get shot, is now a really cool addition to the city. You can rent paddle boats, kayaks or take a gondola ride on the canal or just explore it like we did. Having a drummer in my family, the Rhythm museum was on the must see list. We also explored the war memorial on the circle. My sports fans wanted to stop at Lucus Oil Stadium home of the Colts. And my new obsession is city capitals. I lived in Indiana for 21 years of my life and never once stopped in the Capital. Indianapolis is still one of my favorite cities! As we prepared to leave the city, tired after two weeks of traveling, we took a picture with the same race car that greeted us on our arrival. We look more weary and are definitely ready to be heading home. But wait! As we pulled away from the gate in our plane with the flight attendants doing their safety drills, the plane suddenly lost power.  The crew explained to us that the auxiliary power unit died and needed a jump start. We headed back to the gate where they attempted to jump the plane. After failed attempts and many passengers with connections, the plane was unloaded with passengers left to find flights to their final destinations. My middle child is not thrilled with change and was quite upset with this new wrench in our plans and was in tears for about an hour as we arranged a back up plan since we weren't leaving Indy anytime soon. Delta airlines having delayed both our flights coming in at the start of our trip, was not winning any new customers with this new predicament. Here we are, having never left Indy, sad that we can't get home. Take 2 Catching an early morning flight we made it home! We flew in on a beautiful day in Seattle and were greeted with amazing weather and even more amazing views as we landed! Places to see: Caves {Mammoth cave isn't the only one-explore Diamond Caverns or Marengo caves} Churchill Downs Louisville Slugger museum and factory tour Carriage ride downtown Louisville Conner Prairie Rhythm Museum Canal in Indianapolis White River Park trails Indy-rent a bike or a boat Circle downtown Indy Lucas Oil Stadium Indiana State Capital War monument downtown Indy We made a lot of stops, saw a lot of things and made some great memories. We are still recovering from our trip, but are thankful that we had the time to explore a part of the United States that we haven't spent much time in. I hope you have had time to explore this summer.  Even if it is just in your own city! Thanks for reading along on our adventures.