Monday, July 13, 2009

Girls trip- Saturday











Ok, so we all SLOWLY roll out of bed around 7:45 or 8. One bathroom and 4 girls is not good. We got out of there pretty quick though. We hit McDonalds at 9 am ( we figured we had plenty of time because mammoth cave was " just right up the road ". Well we headed out from McDonalds around 9:30 and we drove for about 10 minutes........then we see a sign that said Mammoth cave 10 miles. 10 Miles?! Vroom......we go a little faster. It seemed like it took so long to get there. WE are pulling into the park and we had like 8 minutes before we're supposed to be on this tour. The parking lot is PACKED out! We parked WAY at the back of the parking lot and Lila jumped out and ran on up to the building because we still had to pick up the tickets. As the rest of us walked up there we could see a sea of people in line and waiting under huge pavilions for the different tours. The line to the tickets was out the door. But Lila came out of the door with the tickets. She just walked right in a bypassed that line and walked up to another line and was out in like 2 seconds. So if anyone is planning on going up there during the summer it is so worth it to buy your tickets in advance! Our tour was sold out too....so that is another reason to buy in advance. As we walked back out to get under the pavilion for the 10 am " historic tour " The Ranger started yelling and telling us all about the rules and yadayada yada here we go. SO we just made it in time. :o) At first we walked outside.....down a big hill and the ranger stopped and talked to us some more. Then we headed to our entrance which is also where the bats evidently enter/exit too judging by the sign that was there. As soon as we were at the mouth of the cave it felt like a giant air conditioner was blowing! I was glad that I wore Jeans and and brought a hoodie. The whole tour was 2 miles and over 2 hours. There were lots of big open spaces and lots of REALLY tight spaces. One being the fat man's misery where you had to get sideways to weave your way through for 2 hundred something feet. Then there was tall man's misery where we had to hunch over to get through. A lot of the way the ceiling was just above my head. There were lots of places where people had carved there names and the date. Many dates were in the 1800's. We went across the ' bottomless pit'. The thing we walked across on was just metal with holes you could see through under your feet. Pretty cool. Of course by the time we got to that stuff, my camera was dead. In the mad dash to get to the tour on time, I didn't think to put my extra batteries in my pocket either. The others are supposed to email me copies of their pictures. When we got back to the top and outside it was soooooooooooo weird. After being down in that cool cave and coming up into the 90 degree humidity. It really felt like a sauna!. I enjoyed the tour and I would like to go back sometime and do another tour. There were lots of other cave sites we saw signs for on the interstate too. Plenty of caving to do.




Before we left, I hit the little souvenir area. I've been wanting to get the ' Passport to America's National Parks. " It is really cool. It had all of the regions in it and you get it stamped at each national park you go to. Perfect for me and Lee anyway. We are always looking for excuses for an adventure. I bought my passport and got it stamped and we headed out. We still had a couple of hours of driving to get to Shelly's house in London.

2 comments:

Heather said...

How neat! I wouldn't like the bottomless pit though... :os Brandon has talked about Mammoth Cave for a long time. I think he went up there years ago with Jason. I'd like to see it. I have only ever been to one cave, which was the Forbidden Caverns in the Smokies when I was 12. I'd like to do some more!

Heather said...

The only other cave I have been in was the Forbidden Caverns too. I think I was about 7.:o) There is another Cave to do in the Smokies over around Townsend that I've wanted to go see.