Kentucky Road Trip
Our Kentucky Road Trip
If you have been following some of our other adventures you may know that I have been practicing hiking and camping with the kids for a while now. Last week it was time to put our skills to the test and go on a Kentucky road trip! Kentucky is our home state so I thought it would be a great place to start exploring and in the worst case scenario we could easily just head home. So we packed up the car and headed on a five day road trip.
Carter Caves
Day one we left Northern Kentucky and headed south towards Maysville. We stopped there to buy our food for the day and played on a playground by the river. After our legs felt all stretched out we got back in the car and headed further south to Carter Caves State Resort Park! First we hiked the Natural Bridge Trail. Which is a pretty short trail that took us only about 45 minutes. It has great views though and the coolest natural bridge which feels more like a tunnel. After a little rest we headed to the Cascade Cave tour.
The kids had never been in a cave before so they were super excited to be in a new environment. It was a very easy cave tour that took about an hour and 15 minutes. We got to see three different types of bats, which are Novella’s favorite animals and there was a really pretty underground waterfall.
After that we headed to our campsite. The campground was pretty nice; there were lots of other campers and kids around. Our campsite had a bit of a wooded area behind it so the kids played in the trees while I set up camp. We opted for car camping, as a solo woman traveling alone with kids it just felt safer to be able to lock ourselves in.
Natural Bridge State Park
Day 2 we packed up and headed towards the next destination on our Kentucky Road Trip, Natural Bridge State Park! On the way we made a stop in Morehead Kentucky to go to Sheltowee Falls Splash Pad. It was a cute little splash pad with three small slides and plenty of water jets and sprayers. The best part of this Splash Pad was it was totally free! Sheltowee Falls was one of the kids favorite parts of the whole Kentucky road trip. They loved it so much.
Once we got back on the road we stopped at a Dollar General to grab our food for the day and were off to our campsite. Our campsite at Natural Bridge was one of my favorites of the trip. There was no electricity on this side of the park so not a lot of people were around and we were able to run around and take up extra space. We were also right next to the Henson’s arch trail which was a bit scary at times because it was pretty high up and got narrow at a lot of points. Plus the mud was slippery. When we got to the end of the trail though there was a staircase that led down into a hole where a waterfall was splashing into.
Cumberland Falls
Day 3 we made our way to Cumberland Falls. It was really hot so we decided to make a quick trip to see the falls and then set up our site and went swimming in the pool. The playground was close to our site so we spent some time playing there before settling in at our site. We got hit real hard with bugs at Cumberland Falls, the kids really struggled with that aspect. The good part about lots of bugs though was there were a ton of lightning bugs. It turns out lightning bugs like glow sticks so we held up our glow sticks and made friends with them.
Dale Hollow
Day 4 we went to Dale Hollow State Resort Park. I am pretty sure we were in the only people tent or car camping at the whole campground; everyone had boats and campers but we still had a blast. This was by far the nicest of the campgrounds. The bathrooms and upkeep of the park were very good.
It was super hot so we were thankful for the pool. We spent the whole day splashing in the water and making friends with other campers. The playground was right in the backyard of our campsite which was very nice. The kids ran back and forth to play and snack or just relax in nature.
Playcosystem
Day 5 we started to drive home but we made a stop at Bernheim Arboretum and research forest. Which is a huge park with tons of different things to explore. We wanted to check out the Playcosystem which is a nature play area. There were trees to climb logs to jump on sand to build in and so much more. The kids really loved it there and we will definitely be going back to explore more of the park.
Kentucky Road Trip
The trip was a major success. I was so proud of the kids. I was anticipating whining and crying and arguing that comes with young children and while there was a little bit of it. There was not nearly as much as I was expecting. For majority of the trip everyone was happy and having fun. I can not wait to go on more adventures with them.
