17 Aug 2025 - Corvette Museum, Liberty in the ER, Last Day at Cave City

 

It's been one of those days.  This morning we headed south to Bowling Green KY to visit the National Corvette Museum.  As we entered Bowling Green we passed the General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant.  Had time allowed and different circumstances that might have been a good tour to take.  We arrived at the National Corvette Museum and toured the facility.  I appreciate cars of all sorts, but being a MOPAR guy from birth, I have never been over the top with Corvettes.  But the museum was very well done and the cars are magnificent.  In addition to the museum they offer a Corvette racing simulator, a road course driving experience and a high-speed go-kart race. 

We did not take advantage of those, but did walk through the museum and look at the beautiful Corvettes starting with one of the original 300 delivered in 1953. They were hand built and assembled in a Flint MI.  They had Corvettes from the various years which brought back memories and they had special Corvettes. 

A 1961 I remember featured with the Beach Boys group

This 1954 was entombed in a grocery store by the owner

Nostalgic - My friend Russ Johnson will appreciate this one

Corvette Assembly

The 1963 split window, only happened one year

There were several displays on how Corvettes were developed, including this clay model

A remnant from the 2014 sink hole here in the museum.  This is a 1984 PPG Pace Car, one of eight cars that was swallowed up by the sink hole here in the middle of the museum. Most were restored.   Inside the Skydome they have an access hole in the floor to the sink hole that is sealed, but you can look down the hole.  

This square portal in some diamond plate on the floor shows the shaft down to the sink hole.

The Skydome features many unique Corvettes such as a Star Trek version, the one millionth Corvette, one of 43 redesigned 1983 Vets, a 1961 Brad Paisley Corvette, a 1968 Jim Lovell tribute Corvette and many more.

After the museum we stopped for groceries at a local IGA and then headed back north about 25 miles to the campground.  

Liberty was excited to see us, but broke out into a nearly non-stop gagging-cough.  She's had this before and is medicated for it by our vet at home, but today it was much worse and non-stop.  After an hour or more there was no let up and it was obvious she was in distress, so I found a pet emergency room open on weekends back in Bowling Green.  I called them and then we loaded up and headed down there.  On the way down her gagging cough subsided but we continued.  I brought video on my phone so they could see what she was doing.  She was examined by the vet including chest x-rays.  She suffers from a heart murmur from birth and congestive heart failure along with an enlarged heart which is pressing on her wind pipe and causing spasms and her coughing.  This is exacerbated when she gets excited, such as us arriving home from our sightseeing.  Their exam records will be sent to our vet at home.  In the mean time they gave her an injection to calm her to allow the wind pipe to recover a bit.  They also gave us some meds that we can administer to help calm her as needed.  She will never get over this but hopefully the meds will help and provide her a quality of life for a while at least.  

With the last two episodes Doreen and I are about toast here.  If it were not for our grandson's basic training graduation I would be headed home. This stress strips the enjoyment out of traveling for me at least.  We will see what happens in the next week or so.  If she improves we will continue but if not I may re-evaluate our remaining plans.

Tomorrow is travel day.  ~220 miles to a campground north of Knoxville TN.  Next report, from Raccoon Valley at Volunteer Park Campground in Heiskell TN