So it continued to rain in Bowling Green until about 11pm on Saturday – apparently it was more than 2.5 inches of rain that fell, which is something like two feet of snow. I’ll take the rain, I guess!
On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at the National Corvette Museum which is located in Bowling Green, very near the GM assembly plant where Corvettes are made. It’s an interesting place, giving a nice history of the iconic Corvette and displaying lots of cars – it’s fun to compare and see the changes over the years.
Original 1953 Corvette 
2009 “Blue Devil” – capable of speeds over 200mph 
The iconic badge; originally, the flag on the left was the American Flag, until the designers were told they couldn’t use the flag for advertising purposes 
1957 Corvette 
Schwinn Corvette Bicycle. Wonder how fast it could go? 
1954 Corvette that was entombed for over 20 years 
Classic Corvette in front of a 1950s Mobil gas station
1963 Split-window Corvette 
From the rear – the split window 
1963 Astro-Vette – concept car for an aerodynamic study 
A “frog” – designers have this piece painted in a variety of colors so they can decide which ones to offer to consumers. 
Full-scale clay model 
The one and only 1983 Corvette. 43 were built for testing, only this one survived; they never made it to market because they ran out of time and skipped that model year. 
If you buy a new Corvette, you can choose to take delivery at the museum. These are waiting for their buyers to pick them up!
They also featured some of the many pop culture connections the Corvette has – from songs to movies to toys.
Monday, we packed up once again and headed North to our final campground…number 13 (originally, there would have only been 12, but the changes to the final few days based on weather meant one extra campground). It’s the Indianapolis KOA, just East of the city…we actually stayed here back in June when we spent a few days exploring the area. It seems to be mostly a one-night-stay stopover campground at this time of year since the weather isn’t generally warm enough for it to be a destination, and the place is pretty deserted.
On Tuesday, we decided to take advantage of our time here and head to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indy 500, for a “Kiss the Bricks” tour. It’s become something of a tradition for the winner of this race to kiss the bricks at the finish line, hence the name. We’re not huge race fans, but the Indy 500 is such an American tradition – it’s the largest single-day sporting event in the world, and it draws over 300,000 people to the speedway. The stadium is massive, seating over 250,000 people, and it was really interesting to see how much there is in the infield…it’s not just open land. I will likely now watch this year’s race on TV, just to see the same place filled with people and cars. Our bus tour took us on one full lap of the track (2.5 miles), and we were able to get out at the start/finish line to kiss the bricks (we opted against that disgusting idea) and take pictures.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum (currently closed for renovations) 
The famous bricks at the start/finish line. Originally, the entire track was made of bricks, and the track earned the nickname “The Brickyard” 
The starter’s perch, made to look like the crow’s nest from the USS Indianapolis 
The “pagoda” – sponsors get to sit in these coveted box seats 
Looking down the straightaway, lined with some of the 250,000 seats along the sides 
That’s the Victory Podium behind us 
The pit and garages 
The tall tower is the scoring pylon
We’d been monitoring the weather forecast for both Wednesday and Thursday to decide which would be better for the final leg of our trip home. Wednesday showed wind and rain; Thursday had snow. We decided Wednesday was the lesser of two evils. I did lots of cleaning and Mark did all of his re-winterization before we left the campground, since RoVer Too will go back into storage for at least a couple of months; we hit the road around 10:30 and had an uneventful trip home. Right after we got home, the sky got really dark and ominous and all the outdoor lights went on like it was dusk…at 2pm! A nasty rain storm blew through…our timing was perfect! And, shortly after 5pm, we huddled in our bathroom during a tornado watch. What a crazy week of weather we’ve been dealing with from Chattanooga all the way home.
As always, it’s wonderful to be home. We had such a fantastic trip – beautiful weather, amazing places, fabulous memories. All total, we drove over 5,000 miles – about 3,200 while towing RoVer Too, and the rest with just the truck. Amazing how the mileage goes up by 50% with our day trips and sightseeing!
I can’t say enough about how much we love the new truck. It made this trip so much easier and more comfortable. And we certainly spent a lot of hours in it!
We don’t yet have any summer camping plans…guess I better get to work planning our next adventure…
March 19, 2025, 9:24 pm
You had me at ‘crazy weather’.