David, Have you looked at flying into Nashville on Southwest Airlines and renting a car. You can sometimes find really good deals on tickets from Houston to Nashville. This adds about 3 hours one way to the drive but may save you some money. Plus, one of the finest drives across a karst area in the US is between the Tennessee/Kentucky state line, through Bowling Green, and on to Louisville on 31W (the Dixie Highway (die way). This used to be the main route north/south before interstate 65). So, I would recommend that you get off the interstate and see the countryside.
It has lots of cheap hotels, and some real Americana before the Interstates displaced it. You drive on top of the Pennyroyal Plain, one of the great rolling sinkhole plains, past numerous wild and commercial caves including Lost River Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, through Park City, Cave City, Horse Cave, past Wigwam Village (a hotel of concrete teepees built around a sinkhole), by the ACCA Headquarters and cave museum (well worth the stop), past Our Lady of the Caves Catholic Church, by Fort Knox, down the escarpment on Muldrough Hill, and into Louisville. (You also drive pretty close to the Valley of the Drums and the Brickyard, two famous hazardous waste sites which helped create the Superfund program. However, I wouldn't recommend stopping. Also, you may want to stop by the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, accessed from the Indiana side, it is one of the best exposed Devonian Reefs on the planet and has a fine museum and displays. It is also noted for its Pleistocene fossils as this was a major river crossing because of the shallow waters. Once you hit Indiana, I'm not sure what's up that way. I would guess lots of corn. Great part of the country. Geary --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
