Last Updated: September 3, 2026
Hardin was our last westward stop in Kentucky on our way to spring in the Rocky Mountains. From the Red River Gorge to Corbin, it was a couple hour drive in the rain. It was also our last chance to see elk again until the Rockies. Three stops across the width of the state — Cumberland Falls in the east, Bowling Green in the middle, Hardin out on Kentucky Lake — and between them a sinkhole that ate eight Corvettes, a fenced prairie with elk in it, and the scar of one of the worst tornadoes in American history.
Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, Corbin Kentucky
We visited Cumberland Falls last time we were in the area but this campground wasn’t open at the time. The falls themselves, the moonbow and the Colonel Sanders story are all in that earlier post — this time we drove through Corbin without stopping and came back for the park itself, the campground and the woods around it.
We returned wanting to explore more waterfalls and hiking trails.
We had 50amp service and good water pressure but no sewer. Unfortunately, the rain prevented much hiking, but we had one partially sunny day, so we took advantage. Rain is not the worst thing that can happen to a spring walk in Kentucky. The millipedes and slugs come out on the wet leaf litter, the woods smell like woods, and the ephemerals — the anemones, the violets, the redbud overhead — are working to a deadline. They have to flower, be pollinated and set seed before the canopy closes over them, which is why the show is so good in the weeks nobody wants to be outside.
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Bowling Green was a 3 hour drive from Corbin. This was primarily a layover stop for us.
KOA had full service. Even though we were between two highways, we didn’t hear them in the coach.
Best part was, the Corvette Museum. Neither of us ever considered owning one, other than a classic or the latest rear engine, but we enjoyed the museum.
The museum opened in 1994, on the other side of Interstate 65 from the Bowling Green assembly plant where every Corvette since 1981 has been built. It takes about an hour to tour the facility. There are quite a few Corvettes on display. It was nice to see the changes over the years and Corvette’s racing heritage.
In 2014 a sinkhole collapsed in the museum swallowing eight Corvettes. The wreckage was on display. It happened at about 5:40 in the morning on February 12, with nobody in the building, and it opened a hole roughly 40 feet across, 60 long and 30 deep in the floor of the Skydome. The cars that went in included the one-millionth Corvette ever built, a white 1992 convertible, and the ZR1 known as the Blue Devil.
The part that makes it more than a freak accident is what Bowling Green is built on. This is the same Mississippian limestone karst that runs north to Mammoth Cave, about thirty miles away — the same soluble rock, dissolving along the same joints, hollowing out the same kind of passages. The Skydome was built close to the contact between two of those limestone layers, and there was already a void underneath it. Hydrologists who looked at the collapse found that runoff from the building had been concentrating at one point and washing soil down into that void for years. Lost River Cave, on the other side of town, is the visitor-friendly version of exactly the same process.
So the world’s longest cave system and eight ruined sports cars are the same geological story, told thirty miles apart. Three of the eight were eventually restored — the Blue Devil, the one-millionth car after some 1,200 hours of work, and a 1962 Tuxedo Black in 2018. The rest were deliberately left as they came out of the hole, which is what we photographed.
Our first lilacs of the year.
Hardin, Kentucky
It was a couple hour drive from Bowling Green to Hardin.
Kenlake State Resort Park, Hardin
We had 50 amp service and good water pressure, but we needed 50 feet of electric and water line to reach them. Our site had great views of Kentucky Lake at Land Between The Lakes.
Elk & Bison Prairie, Hardin
Closer to the RV park is the Elk and Bison Prairie. It is a 700-acre enclosure with a 3.5-mile paved loop through it, and you stay in the vehicle. We covered the prairie’s restoration and the towns that were cleared to make Land Between the Lakes in an earlier post.
Last time we were here, we only saw bison.
Worth knowing that Kentucky has two separate elk stories and these are the smaller one. The animals here live inside the prairie fence. The other herd is wild and much larger: elk were gone from Kentucky by the mid-1800s, and between December 1997 and 2002 the state brought in 1,541 of them from six western states — Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon and Utah — and released them into a restoration zone covering sixteen counties and more than four million acres of the eastern Kentucky coalfields. That herd is now the largest east of the Mississippi, and it is one of the more successful wildlife restorations anywhere in the country.
There were bison, but not as visible this time. That is usually a matter of timing rather than luck — both species feed in the open early and late and move into the trees through the middle of the day, so the loop rewards the first hour after sunrise and the last before sunset far more than it rewards lunchtime.
Patti’s 1880’s Settlement
In 1975 Bill and Patti Tullar fell in love with Grand Rivers, Kentucky. What they actually bought was Newcomb’s Modern Cabins, a six-unit motel renting kitchenettes at $11.55 a night.
They purchased a motel, then opened Patti’s Ice Cream Parlor, and eventually Patti’s 1880’s Restaurant. It grew from there into gift shops, gardens, a gazebo, mini golf and lodging — the whole settlement. Then on February 5, 2017 the restaurant burned to the ground. They cleared the site, broke ground on a rebuild in August 2018 and reopened on November 27, 2019, which means the building we ate in was about two and a half years old and the business inside it was over forty.
Its located about 30 minutes north of Hardin in the Land Between the Lakes area. We had a nice lunch.
The Mayfield Tornado
On our way back to the RV park we saw some of the tornado damage from last year’s Mayfield tragedy. It’s truly amazing how 100 yards in each direction can be completely unaffected. The picture doesn’t reflect the pure force of large trees being snapped in half.
The storm came through on the night of December 10, 2021, five months before we got here. It was a high-end EF4 with winds estimated at 190 miles an hour, and it stayed on the ground for 165 miles — the longest-tracked tornado in the United States since 2011 and the deadliest December tornado in the country’s history. Fifty-seven people were killed in Kentucky. Mayfield lost its downtown and a candle factory with workers inside it.
The trees in this photograph are in Land Between the Lakes, which is a long way from Mayfield and well away from any of the towns that made the news. They are there because the same tornado crossed Kentucky Lake and went straight through the recreation area, still rated EF2, flattening timber and snapping power poles, before crossing Lake Barkley and strengthening again toward Princeton and Dawson Springs. Driving the Trace back down to Hardin puts you across its track.
And the hundred yards is exactly how these things work. The damage has an edge to it, and the edge is startlingly sharp — inside it the timber is snapped off at head height, and a short walk to either side the woods are untouched. It is the single most disorienting thing about standing in a tornado track.
Visitor Information
National Corvette Museum. Address: 350 Corvette Drive, Bowling Green, KY 42101. Phone: 270-781-7973. Hours: Open daily, generally 8am to 5pm; check before travelling. Admission: Charged, with discounts for seniors, military and children, and combination tickets available with the on-site motorsports park. Allow: About an hour for the museum itself. Since our visit: a permanent exhibit called “Ground to Sky: The Sinkhole Reimagined” opened on June 14, 2024 for the tenth anniversary of the collapse. Website: corvettemuseum.org.
Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. Address: 7351 Highway 90, Corbin, KY 40701. Phone: 606-528-4121. Admission: Free to enter the park; camping and lodge rooms charged. Camping: Sites with electric and water, no sewer at the site, with a dump station; the campground is seasonal, so check opening dates if you are travelling early in the spring as we were. Website: Cumberland Falls State Resort Park.
Kenlake State Resort Park. Address: 542 Kenlake Road, Hardin, KY 42048. Phone: 270-474-2211. Camping: Lakeside sites with 50-amp service and water; bring long cords and hoses, because hookups can be a good distance from the pad. Website: Kenlake State Resort Park.
Elk & Bison Prairie. Address: 238 Visitor Center Drive, Golden Pond, KY 42211, on the Trace in Land Between the Lakes. Phone: 270-924-2233. Hours: Daily, sunrise to sunset. Admission: $5 per vehicle. Rules: A 3.5-mile one-way paved loop; stay in your vehicle throughout. Website: Land Between the Lakes — Elk & Bison Prairie.
Patti’s 1880’s Settlement. Address: 1793 J H O’Bryan Avenue, Grand Rivers, KY 42045, about 30 minutes north of Hardin. Phone: 270-362-8844. Known for: the two-inch pork chop, flowerpot bread and mile-high meringue pie. Note: It is busy; reservations are worth making. Website: pattis1880s.com.
Practical Tips
Drive the prairie loop early or late. Elk and bison graze the open grass at dawn and dusk and shelter in the trees through the middle of the day. We saw elk properly on this visit and only bison on the last one, and timing explains most of that difference.
Carry long cords and hoses at Kenlake. We needed fifty feet of electric and water line to reach the hookups from our pad. The lake views are worth it, but arriving without the length is a bad surprise.
Check state park campground opening dates in early spring. Cumberland Falls was not open when we passed through the first time. Kentucky’s state park campgrounds run on seasons, and the falls being open does not mean the campground is.
Do the Corvette Museum even if you do not care about Corvettes. Neither of us has ever wanted one and we both enjoyed it. An hour is about right, and the sinkhole exhibit is the most interesting thing in the building.
Rain is not a lost day in a Kentucky spring. The wildflowers, fungi and slow-moving invertebrates are all better in wet weather, and the woods are at their best in the few weeks before the canopy closes.
Be thoughtful around tornado damage. These are working communities that lost people, not scenery. Photograph the woods and the landscape rather than damaged homes, and do not park where you are in the way of anyone still cleaning up.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened at the National Corvette Museum sinkhole? At about 5:40am on February 12, 2014, the floor of the museum’s Skydome collapsed into a cave void beneath it, opening a hole roughly 40 feet wide, 60 feet long and 30 feet deep and swallowing eight Corvettes. Nobody was in the building. Three cars were later restored and the rest are displayed as they came out.
Why does Bowling Green have sinkholes? The city sits on soluble Mississippian limestone, the same karst belt that produces Mammoth Cave about thirty miles north. Water dissolves passages underground, soil washes down into them, and eventually the surface gives way. Lost River Cave in Bowling Green is the same process you can walk into.
Can you see the sinkhole at the Corvette Museum today? Not the hole itself, which was filled and the Skydome repaired and reopened in July 2015. Since June 2024 there has been a permanent exhibit, “Ground to Sky: The Sinkhole Reimagined,” telling the story with the damaged cars.
Are you guaranteed to see elk and bison at the Elk & Bison Prairie? No, but the odds are good, and they improve enormously at dawn and dusk. It is a 700-acre fenced enclosure with a 3.5-mile one-way loop, $5 per vehicle, and you must stay in your car.
Are the elk at Land Between the Lakes wild? They live inside the prairie enclosure. Kentucky’s free-ranging elk are a separate population in the eastern coalfields, restored from 1,541 animals brought in from six western states between 1997 and 2002, and now the largest herd east of the Mississippi River.
How bad was the December 2021 Kentucky tornado? It was a high-end EF4 with 190 mph winds that tracked 165 miles on the night of December 10, 2021, killing 57 people in Kentucky. It was the deadliest December tornado in United States history and the longest-tracked American tornado since 2011, and its path crossed Kentucky Lake and Land Between the Lakes.
What is Patti’s 1880’s Settlement known for? A two-inch-thick pork chop, bread baked and served in a flowerpot, and mile-high meringue pies. It began in 1975 as a six-unit motel, burned down in February 2017 and reopened rebuilt in November 2019.
Where should you stay to visit Land Between the Lakes? Kenlake State Resort Park at Hardin sits on the Kentucky Lake side with lakeside camping and a lodge. There is also camping within Land Between the Lakes itself, and Grand Rivers at the northern end has lodging near Patti’s.
That was the end of Kentucky. From Hardin we crossed into Missouri and the Ozarks, to a town surrounded by some of the largest freshwater springs in North America — Eminence, Missouri.
