KENTUCKY

(Mammoth Cave National Park)

Traveling back in time to the summer of 2018, my mom had a work convention that would be taking her to Nashville, Tennessee. However, she decided we could make the most of it and planned an entire south east roadtrip around it, and my mom’s husband Bruce, my sister Alyssa, my sister Rebekah, and myself were invited and able to come with!

On the first morning of our adventure on July 12th, we departed town at sunrise and made our way down through Nebraska and Kansas and ending in Columbia, Missouri where we would be spending our first night. We went out for dinner at a place called India’s House, which was my first experience with Indian cuisine. It was a very delicious and enjoyable first encounter.

We did a little bit of walking around and exploring around downtown since we had been sitting in the car all day. There were even some less than shy cicadas hanging about low enough on the tree chunks to be seen and hold my hand up to for an unfortunately disgusting size comparison. We closed out the evening doing some swimming in our hotel’s pleasantly warm swimming pool before officially calling it a night on our first day.

The dawn of day two brought us through Illinois and Indiana before arriving in the Bluegrass State of Kentucky where we would be making our first big sightseeing pit stop at Mammoth Cave National Park, home to the longest known cave system in the entire world! For reference, the second-longest cave system in Mexico is 1.5 times shorter than the more than 426 miles of passageways that have currently been surveyed within Mammoth Cave.

The first cave tour we took was the Historic Tour, a two hour tour into the main entrance of Mammoth Cave and visits many of the historic areas that made Mammoth Cave famous. To begin the tour, we descended down into the astonishingly large main entrance. After making our way deeper into the cave, our tour guide, Ranger John, turned off all the cave lights except for a lantern he was holding to show us the true darkness of the cave. It was a large rotunda, but you’d never even know it was there because of the pitch blackness of the cave.

While there were many large caverns, there were also several tight and winding passages that required ducking and maneuvering through. A passage or two even required some neck bending and side stepping. Our tour guide’s quote was “mind your step, mind your head, and if you don’t, then mind your language.”

Some of our tour took us over bridges where looking straight down would present a view of deep holes and crevices within the cave, which could definitely be a bit intimidating, or downright scary if you’re afraid of heights. Fortunately, I’m not because miles deep into a cave wouldn’t be a great place to have a panic attack.

Another part of our tour required us traveling through an area of the cave called Fat Man’s Misery. The walls were only about waist high, but they, as Ranger John put it, jumped out and touched us. And they really did. Some of the sides were so close together, I had to shuffle to the side to get through. We also had to climb through a tunnel as part of our tour, which was another adventure. Fortunately, the tunnel was large, so there wasn’t any shimmying or tight squeezing required because otherwise I would’ve turned tail and hiked my unguided keister right out of there. Getting lodged or stuck in immovable stone where rescuers are unable to reach you is something I have very little interest in.

Finally, in order to make our way back out of the cave, we had to take what felt like an unending amount of stairs back up toward the entrance. The cave was a comfortable and balmy 54° all the way through, and rising back up into the outside world, we were immediately hit with the summer heat and humidity. Also upon exiting the cave, our mom did a very sweet and mom thing and insisted Alyssa and I get a picture with Ranger John. We took one “nice” picture and then were all pressured to also do a “silly” pose. We all apparently interpreted silly as confused.

On our way back to the trail from the cave, we saw some people looking at and pointing out something just off the trail within the low branches. Upon further and curious inspection, we identified the object, or animal I should say, of interest was a Copperhead Rattlesnake napping in the leaves. While I am not normally afraid of snakes, it is also not high on my bucket list to tangle with a venomous serpent either. Therefore, I definitely walked closer with apprehension and a little bit of a shaky hand for a picture. I was still plenty far from striking distance and relied on my phone’s zoom.

After making our way back toward the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, we treated ourselves to some ice cream at Spelunker Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor for a sweet treat to counteract the heat. We also swung through the gift shop in the visitor center where I picked out my coffee travel mug for Mammoth Cave. It might still be one of my favorites to this day. It is all black on the outside beside the words engraved Mammoth Cave. The inside is where the design is. It has a picture of inside the cave all around the inside so that your coffee can spend some time inside Mammoth Cave too!

After camping in the park that night, our Day 3 allowed us to start our adventure within the realm of Mammoth Cave National Park again. Our first venture of the next day of our road trip brought us to a different park of the National Park in order to partake in the Domes and Dripstones Tour. We met at the visitor center like we had the previous day and hopped on a bus which took us to a separate entrance. The entrance to this part of the cave was not large and grand. Instead, it was a door that led us down a creepy stairwell into the cave that had walls covered in centipedes.

The very first part of our tour brought us down stairs 250 feet deep into the cave. The steps were a little wet and slippery, so we had to be extra careful. This was a change from the previous day’s tour where that part of the cave had been dry. However, the water and moisture in this part of the cave is what caused the creation of the main attractions of stalactites and stalagmites. The main event of the tour is the Frozen Niagara Falls, a natural geological feature that resembles Niagara Falls frozen in onyx.

We also got to walk through an area called the Drapery Room, a stunning rotunda where the ceiling is covered in waves of stalactites, creating the illusion of curtains of stone. I might’ve liked it even more than the Frozen Niagara Falls formation.

We passed by many more unique formations as we made our way through the rest of the tour on our way back out of the cave. Some of the formations were encased in gates to prevent people from touching them and contaminating the natural growth process or breaking pieces off to take with them. As we exited the door once again, there were lots of gorgeous butterflies fluttering about to greet our entrance back up into the outside world.

Before hitting the road for the next stretch of our road trip, we decided to make up some lunch and then go on our own self-guided short hike before we would meet up with a tour guide that would guide us through a different short hike. Or at least that was the plan. However, our short hike ended up being a longer one, and we just took the guided hike by ourselves instead of waiting to take it with a tour group. We hiked the River Styx Trail and the Echo River Springs Trail, and in total, we hiked about 8 miles!

Then it was time to hit the road and drive just over an hour and a half to Nashville for the next chapter in our road trip journey!