Advertisement
Published: September 25th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Ready to get started :)
I was ready to sleep right there! 20th August 2007 We had come to the last part of our planned trips. We were going to the
Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. After rafting in The Ocoee River the previous day we were all tired and just wanted to sleep a bit more 😊 The caves did not sound interesting enough to wake us up from bed and drive! But we did just that and did not regret it one bit.
It was about a 2 hr drive from Nashville. A piece of advice, there aren't many places to eat in the vicinity and it would be a good idea to either pack some lunch along (especially if you are traveling with people with food restrictions) if you plan to spend the whole day there or arrive after an early brunch to make most of the time there. Unfortunately, we did neither and arrived there at about 11 am. We decided what trips to do, got our tickets and then drove out for lunch and got back. This was actually not a very good idea as I felt extremely sleepy and almost was willing to curl up in the car 😊
New Entrance Tour We started out with
Frozen Niagara
Creating naming I'll say! this tour, and boarded the bus to take us to the New Entrance. The entrance discovered in the 1920’s, makes you descend 280 steps through impressive pits, domes, and a few narrow openings. We descended into the cave from the top so my grandma and mother-in-law had to be quite careful as this was an active part of the cave with water leaking in some spots causing it to be wet and slippery. It is hard to describe in words the feeling you get exploring these places. Constantly at 55-60 degree F (I was cursing myself for not bringing our jackets along), this tour focussed more on the fancy formations - the stalactites (from the ceiling toward the floor) and the
stalagmites (from the floor up to the ceiling). When they both join they form a column. Much as I was impressed with God's creation and how the flow of water with mother earth had created all these amazing formations I was also very impressed with the effort taken by the American government and of course the laborers to construct the entrance and the passageway, and provide lighting to make this wonder visible to us. At the beginning of our
tour, when we were all seated listening to the history about the cave, our tour guide turned all the lights off- shutting us in pitch darkness, trying to demonstrate how the cave would be without all the artificial lighting. It was humbling to say the least, made me thankful for my eyesight (even though slightly faulty- I wear contacts 😊). Some details about the tour:
* Duration: 2 hours
* Walking Distance: ¾ mile
* Restroom Available? No
* Elevation Change: 250 feet
* Number of Stairs: 500, nearly 200 descended inside New Entrance
Historic Tour After this we split in two and 8 of us (excluding my mil and paati) went to the Historic Tour. The two grand ladies went to the
Mammoth Passage Tour which was not as tiresome and was a subset of the Historic Tour. I know nothing about that tour as I did not go on it, but from their description they did pretty much everything we did expect the final climb up. It was in the Historic tour that you get a whole feel for why this cave got its name as "The Mammoth". The passageways that natural water flow had caused were GINORMOUS (if I
Seated in the Great Hall
This was where the lights were turned off may say so)!!! Many cases bigger than our apartment. I could not fathom how I would have felt as an explorer coming to the cave or having such a huge volume of water flow. ( Am glad I am not doing anything that interesting and only working on a boring Ph.D. 😊 ) This was the original natural entrance of the cave. During the War of 1812 this was used for food storage and as a hospital where people were treated. At the lower level of the cave we saw the Bottomless Pit and really squeezed through Fat Man's Misery. It should also have been named Tall Man's Misery as in some places we almost had to crawl 😞. In the end we climbed up 138 stairs through the Mammoth Dome and exited. Some details about the tour:
* Duration: 2 hours
* Walking Distance: 2 miles
* Restroom available? No.
* Landmarks Seen: Natural Entrance, Rotunda, Broadway Avenue, Methodist Church, Salt Petre artifacts, Giant's Coffin, Sidesaddle Pit, Bottomless Pit, Fat Man's Misery, River Hall, Mammoth Dome, Audubon Avenue
* Elevation Change: 300 feet
* Number of Stairs: 440, including up 138 at Mammoth Dome
I would recommend
Stalactites or Stalagmites
at this point, i really don't know which direction they are pointing to :) both these tours. However depending on how much time one has, they can do more too. This is a must see if you like caves. But please take your jackets and water along. Photos inside don't come out well unless you have snazzy cameras so our pictures don't necessarily reflect what we saw 😊
On a different note, my Aunt & Uncle celebrate their wedding anniversary on Aug 21st and Karthik and I the day after, so we had kind of a joint cake cutting celebration before they left. It was a great trip, got the cousins closer to each other as we spent all our travel time in one car and pushed the oldies to the other 😊. We also got to spend some good time as a family after a long time, making the trip special and giving us countless happy memories !!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 14; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0303s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
latha
non-member comment
Really Rocking!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anoo, your blogs are also getting elevated to being the "READY RECKONERS" for those who are planning to go those places. Job well done.