We took our family vacation in August this year and did a driving trip to Kentucky! Our itinerary was as follows:

Itinerary

Friday, August 5th:

Drive from Apple Valley, MN to Indiana.

Saturday August 6th:

Drive from Indiana to Cave City, Kentucky.
Tour Mammoth Cave
Tour Hidden River Cave and the American Cave Museum

Sunday August 7th:

Drive from Cave City to Cumberland Falls.
Hike around Cumberland Falls.
Swim in Hotel Pool in Somerset.

Monday August 8th:

Drive from Somerset to Red River Gorge
Hike Natural Bridge Trail.
Kayak in cave

Tuesday August 9th:

Hike to Princess Arch and Chimney Top Rock
Drive from Red River Gorge to Earthjoy.
Tree Climb
Hike around Earth joy
Spend the night in a treehouse

Wednesday August 10th:

Drive from Earthjoy to Williamstown.
Spend the day at the Ark Encounter.

Thursday August 11th:

Drive to the Creation Museum.
Spend the day at the Creation Museum.
Spend the night in Cincinnati

Friday August 12th:

Drive to Louisville.
Visit Louisville Slugger Museum.
Ropes Course in Louisville Mega Cavern
Surrey bike ride along the Ohio River

Saturday August 13th:

Spend the day at Kentucky Kingdom and Hurricane Bay (amusement and water park)

Sunday August 14th:

Drive from Louisville, KY to Apple Valley, MN

It was a lot of driving, and full of family together-ness, adventures, and lots of memories made! Below are pictures organized by day.....

Friday August 5th:

Drive from Apple Valley, MN to Indiana.

Thankfully all the kids LOVE to read, so we brought a ginormous bag of books and books on CD from the library. We did family devotions in the car each day as we drove, which was also a highlight.

Saturday August 6th:

Drive from Indiana to Cave City, Kentucky.

Tour Mammoth Cave

Tour Hidden River Cave and the American Cave Museum

We stayed at a super cute house, Firefly Junction, that had horses, chickens, and dogs. The owner left fresh made sour dough bread and fresh eggs for breakfast! Two of the little upper bedrooms had "swing beds". Larkyn especially loved the animals and fell in love with a little dog she named "David". Firefly Junction was such a fun place to stay!

Sunday August 7th:

Drive from Cave City to Cumberland Falls.

Eat a buffet lunch at the visitor's center, and hike around Cumberland Falls.

We cooled off in the visitor center with the giant connect 4!

The Mellow Mushroom was a super fun pizza dinner spot!

Swim in Hotel Pool in Somerset.

Monday August 8th:

Drive from Somerset to Red River Gorge

Hike Natural Bridge Trail (Super fun trail!)

Kayak in underground cave

Hang out at playground/river near our super cute cabin for the night.

Tuesday August 9th:

Hike to Princess Arch and Chimney Top Rock

Drive from Red River Gorge to Earthjoy for tree-climbing! Here is a video on how to tree climb by Larkyn.

Hike around Earthjoy: The grounds around treehouse were really "magical" with a treasure map of natural things to discover....swings, bridges, slides and hammocks were scattered throughout the area, along with a creek for wading.

We spent the night at our treehouse at Earthjoy! It was amazing! Click here for a video tour of our treehouse. We technically had two treehouses connected by a swing bridge. Paul and I slept in the left one, and the kids slept in the right one.

There ended up being a thunderstorm the night we stayed in the treehouse, which added a ton of adventure and memories. We all stayed up until almost midnight playing UNO and Apples to Apples on the treehouse floor while we waited for the worst of the storm to pass. Walking back and forth across the swinging bridge in the dark thunderstorm was an adventure, along with moving buckets and towels to catch the rain water that came inside. Larkyn chose to be very brave sleeping away from mom and dad in the thunder and lightning, thanks to sharing a bed with sweet sister Summer. We made so many memories - what a fun experience staying in a treehouse!

Wednesday August 10th:

Drive from Earthjoy to Williamstown. This ended up being more of an adventure than we had anticipated, as Larkyn got very carsick reading on the careening curves of the Kentucky countryside, and lost her breakfast in the car....we had all hands on deck as the older two helped dig out needed supplies from the trunk and mom and dad tag-teamed the clean-up effort. Thankfully once we got to the Ark Museum and got out of the car, Larkyn was feeling much better! Here we are on the bus from the parking lot to the ark.

We spent the day at the Ark Encounter. It was amazing! We all learned so much and all three kiddos were engaged reading signs and looking at the exhibits.

Thursday August 11th:

We spent the day at the Creation Museum. I didn't take a lot of pictures this day. The Museum was cool, but I think we all enjoyed the ark encounter more. We had planned to spend only a few hours here, but the kids were so interested in reading all of the signs and exhibits that we ended up staying the whole day!

Our hotel had a mix-up, and instead of a double queen + couch sleeper (which we normally do for our family of 5), they were all booked up on those rooms and gave us a 1-king suite. We got creative and made some beds out of other furniture and the kids actually enjoyed sleeping in a different arrangement! We had a microwave popcorn party for bed, and then turned in for the night.

Friday August 12th:

Drive to Louisville and tour the Louisville Slugger Museum.

Ropes Course in Louisville Mega Cavern

(sorry- didn't get pics of Colton, but he was zipping around loving the challenge!)

Surrey bike ride along the Ohio River

Saturday August 13th:

We spent the day at Kentucky Kingdom and Hurricane Bay (amusement and water park). I didn't have my phone for most of the day as we were in the waterpark portion for most of the day (and it was in the locker), but we had fun!