So I got it to work, finally! The problem was in my .htaccess file.  In the cpanel --> Joomla Utilities their is a tool called "Apply Security Tweaks".  When you use this it adds a bunch of rules to your .htaccess file.  I commented out the rule disallowing front-end access to the /cache directory.  That was it.  Learned the hard way... what a headache.  This should be noted in the sticky. I'm sure it will save someone else a lot of time.