Someday has arrived!
Let me back up a few days. We stopped in Louisville first. There our friend Emma treated us to a tour of the Mega Cavern. This cavern was created by years of mining the limestone. When the mining stopped after 42 years, it was bought by some enterprising men who lease portions of the cavern as storage facilities. Our tour consisted of a tram ride through sections of the cavern with a running narration.
I mention our cavern tour to highlight the difference between a cavern and a cave: caves occur naturally, caverns are man-made.
We are at a campground just a few miles from Mammoth Cave. But our day started by driving about 35 miles south to Bowling Green, Kentucky where they have the only underground cave boat tour. This was a hedge for us. (As most of you know, I am recovering from a badly sprained foot, and while I no longer use crutches, I still need to wear a boot when walking outside.) In case I couldn't handle the walking at Mammoth Cave, we thought if we took the boat tour at the Lost River Cave, we would at least see a cave.
Fall is the time to do these kinds of things. There were 6 of us on the boat. I could ask all the questions I wanted! Our guide was a young lady geologist who mixed in enough humor with the technical stuff to make us really glad we did this tour. (Tour guide humor: If a human can fit through an opening in a cave, you can charge admission.)
Bowling Green is also home to the world headquarter of Fruit of the Loom. And they had a Visitor's Center! I thought it would be fun to stop and get our picture taken with with guy dressed as a grape. Mike said he would pass, and didn't stop.
On to Mammoth Cave. I have said this before and I will say this again - our national parks are a treasure. Mammoth Cave was designated as such in 1926. FDR's depression-era answer to unemployment - the Civilian Conservation Corps - was put to work building stairways inside the cave.
The next time you are on Jeopardy, and you take "Caves for $100", and the answer that is revealed says " Nobody knows", you can press your buzzer and give the correct question of "What is- how long is Mammoth Cave?" 400 miles of the cave have been surveyed.
We did our homework the night before and discovered there are several different tours offered by the Park Service. I was disappointed that we could not do the Historic Tour but felt, with the boot, I just would not be able to manage walking for 2 hours over 2 miles and 440 stairs. I think Mike was secretly happy that I had the boot. (I told him what I just typed and he said, "There's no secret about it!")
So we decided on the Frozen Niagara Tour which was 1/4 mile and 12 stairs. Just as we were ready to purchase our tickets for the 1:00 tour, the electronic sign flashed that it was sold out. We decided to try the 12:45 tour (which was 5 minutes away) which was the Domes and Dripstones tour. You could say it was a compromise between the two as this tour was 2 hours, covering 3/4 mile with 500 stairs.
Our ranger guide stressed that we needed to stay together and not have gaps develop between us. I took this as a personal challenge to keep up. (OK - those in my family are not surprised by this).
I was able to do so, only because most of the trail, and all the stairs had handrails. And where there were no handrails, Mike came beside me with his arm as a substitute. You have to be thankful for the little things . . .
We descended 245 ft into the cave. Fat Man's Misery was not part of this tour but there were several tight spots that had us turning sideways to navigate. Once again, there were only 17 people on this tour and our two guides encouraged questions so I raised my hand often. We were surprised to learn that Michigan sends the most visitors to the cave.
One of the highlights was at a stop on the trail that had benches for us to sit on, take a break, listen to the guide and ask questions. After telling us what he was going to do, the guide turned off the few lights. It was total and utter darkness, unlike anything we had ever been in. Absolute absence of light. I was sitting next to Mike, and had I not been holding his hand, I would never know he was there. We put our hands in front of our faces, and could not see them, even when they were only a millimeter from touching our noses. They also asked us to be quiet, and the absence of sound was equally eerie.
We did see the Frozen Niagara formation along with beautiful stalactites (forming from the ceiling down) and stalagmites (forming from the floor up),
The park visitor center didn't have an orientation film but an excellent walk through area with displays on the geology and history of the world's largest cave. We had a really enjoyable day exploring more of our country.
Thursday we are off to Nashville.
air-conditioning!
No comments:
Post a Comment