Real quick tonight as we are having both an internet connection issue and what we affectionately call a PICNIC problem – Problem in chair, not in computer.  I am fatigued and will use our week at a stop in Canton Kentucky to get refreshed and do a catch up blog at the end of the week.

Quickly,  we stopped by the Abbey of the Gethsemane, where Thomas Merton was a brother monk for most of his life.  Truly a place of prayer.

We saw Abraham Lincoln sites, his birthplace and where he lived from ages 2 to 7.  As the historians in the film about him said, before him we did not really have “A” United States of American, we had many states that were somewhat united.  And without Lincoln we would not have a United States today because the southerners to whom slavery was more important than country would have been allowed to split off and form a new country.  Imagine what our world would be like today if that had been allowed to happen.

At the Lincoln Birthplace I even found some displays that continue some of the themes of this trip, family and ancestry.  There was a beautiful sculpture of the Lincoln family at the time he was a baby and very nice display of Abraham Lincoln’s known ancestry.

We also stopped by the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, a place of amzaing natural beauty and a place made for explorers.  It is by far the largest known cave in the world and is still far from fully discovered.

My best memory of the day is a little thing.  A plaque in the gift store at the Abbey with the words: “There are many great love stories, . . . but I like ours best.”

4 weeks, 5,000 miles, 13 states, 15 National Parks, and numerous people, cemeteries, museums and oddities into our trip, I would without doubt affirm that I like our love story best.