LONG STORY SHORT By Kristine McGowan A couple weeks ago, I didn’t expect to have much material for this newsletter. That’s because, of our six upcoming stops, four would be big cities that we’d visit just long enough to see a game at the local Major League Baseball stadium. As for the other two stops, they included one Ohio state park and Kentucky’s only national park—both of which sounded great, but not oh-wow-I-can’t-wait-to-put-this-in-the-newsletter great. Basically, I expected this newsletter to say one thing: We went to lots of baseball games. I had no idea how wrong I would be. Yes, we went to lots of baseball games over the past couple weeks--five, to be precise--but we also got four surprises. One of those surprises was downright awful. Two were pretty spectacular. And one became a memory we’ll treasure for the rest of our lives. Here’s a look at the utterly not-dull time we’ve been having lately. Where have we been?Pittsburgh, Pa.  Unlike our stops in Baltimore, Cleveland, and Philly, we gave ourselves a few days in Pittsburgh so we could do more than just watch a baseball game. We also explored the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, rode the famous Duquesne Incline (pictured above), and caught up with a friend who happened to be passing through on her way to a conference. On top of all that, we got one spectacular surprise and one awful one during our time here. The spectacular one: Our friend, who used to live in Pittsburgh, has a colleague who managed to get us some tickets right behind home plate at the Pirates game. Score. The awful one: We got a tornado warning at 1 a.m. on our second night. The tornadoes missed us thankfully, but it’s not an experience I ever want to relive. Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio  We decided to stop in Hocking Hills for one reason—we needed somewhere to stay for a couple days on our way from Pittsburgh to Kentucky. But, funny enough, this brief layover gave us a one-of-a-kind experience we won’t soon forget. The night we arrived, we opened the door to find the sky alight with the purple glow of the aurora borealis. Talk about a surprise. Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky.  I’ll admit—after all the baseball games, the tornado warning, and staying up late for the aurora borealis, we were pretty beat when we got to Kentucky. Mammoth Cave sounded cool, but we didn’t expect it to differ much from Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. So we weren’t exactly bouncing on our toes to get into the cave. But we should have been. At 426 miles, Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world, and over the course of four hours, we got to explore its slot canyons, tubular passageways, and sparkling tunnels. We’ll file this surprise under “spectacular.” Where are we going next?We have a couple days in Memphis before we head back to the holy land of barbecue—aka Texas. Then we’ll hit a couple national parks before heading into Indiana, where we’ll cross off the item at the top of Jason’s bucket list: the Indy 500.  79. Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky.
80. Memphis, Tenn. 81. Dallas, Texas 82. Houston, Texas 83. Hot Springs National Park, Ark. 84. St. Louis, Mo. 85. Indianapolis, Ind
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