NFL Hall of Fame - Mammoth Cave National Park - Nashville - HOME!

 Finally, the last chapter!

After Cuyahoga NP we headed south for the night.  In the morning we visited the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.  We had been looking forward to this, and it did not disappoint!

First thing you see on the building is the next class of HOF inductees -

Inside the HOF are two floors filled with history and memorabilia to explore - most of the pictures have a Texas connection of course -

ok, but not everything - this is Johnny Unitas' jersey ..

Earl Campbell bust.  Each HOF member has a bust in the Hall.  It was fun to walk through and see all the players that we followed and/or who are legendary in the NFL.

There are exhibits that talk about the most recent season and Superbowl.  This was MVP of 2018 Superbowl Patrick Mahomes (he played for Texas Tech)

The building looks like it has a football coming out of the top.

After four hours in the NFL HOF we drove down to Columbus to see another friend!  Drew is an Actuary that I worked with.  We had a wonderful visit with Drew and his family playing games and getting to know his four children.  This picture was taken the next morning so we missed their two teenagers - they like to sleep in!

At this point we are in for quite a bit of driving!  We headed to Nashville from Columbus, OH.  But first we had to stop at one more National Park in Kentucky.

Mammoth Cave NP.  This was SUPER cool!

Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave system with over 400 miles of surveyed passages (nearly twice as long as the next cave system).  The caves developed in thick limestone strata capped by a layer of sandstone, which has made the system remarkably stable. Basically the watershed around the Ohio River washed out the sandstone in the layers under the limestone (which is impervious to water).  As the elevation of the river lowered, the watershed runoff found lower routes to the river through the sandstone. This resulted in the higher passageways drying out.  The whole cave system is multiple levels going hundreds of feet below the surface.  

Some pictures of the self-guide walk we took -

The "Rotunda"

The entrance to the cave

The visit to MCNP was too quick - we plan to return to explore the caves in more depth (haha - get it?!)

We headed to Nashville - actually south of there to College Grove to see my Uncle Daniel, Aunt Dee and my cousins John & Shelley.  We had not seen each other in quite a while and had a wonderful time visiting with them!

We did not get in a rush leaving the next morning.  We enjoyed a nice breakfast with my family before hitting the road at about 10:00.  We had planned to make it home in 2 days - no need to kill ourselves.

We made it as far as Nacogdoches, Texas the first day.  It felt really good to get into Texas!!

The final day was an easy drive of 2.5 hours.  So good to be home!

After lunch with my mom and dad, the kids made dinner for us - it felt so good to see our crew!

Some fun facts about the trip:

128 hours and 45 minutes of drive time.

6,556 miles. 

27.6 mpg 

average speed 54mph.  

14 states.

6 National Parks/Monuments/Lakeshores.

4 (out of 5) Great Lakes

37 days.

so many friends and family visited!!!

We had a wonderful time!  Thanks for reading our blog!

Sheri & Carsten