Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Day 13
We drove about 2 hours from outside Nashville, TN to Mammoth Cave National Park in Southwest Kentucky, near Bowling Green. It was a very hot day (heat advisories were posted at the park) so we were glad to spend most of the day underground exploring the caves, where the temperature remains around 54 degrees year round. We signed up for the Frozen Niagara Tour which promised "deep pits, high domes, dry cave passages, dripstone area." Our Park Ranger, Bob, was a good tour guide and we spent about 2 hours exploring the cave, between 250 and 300 feet underground. My pictures don't do it justice, but here goes:
Crevices:
Limestone formation:
Exploring the cave:
Rockfall:
"Frozen Niagara" flowstone formation:
Flowstone:
After leaving the cave, we had lunch and then visited the "Historic Entrance" which was one of the original entrances used to view the caves. Even though the outside temperatures were in the high nineties, the cold air coming out of the cave felt like air conditioning.
We then resumed our trip northeast, traveling toward Lexington. We camped at a little campground near Salt Lick, near the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was several miles off the expressway, so we didn't have to listen to trucks all night, but it was a bit run down. Looked like a lot of folks were living in their campers, not just tourists.
One more day of traveling and we will be home.
Crevices:
Limestone formation:
Exploring the cave:
Rockfall:
"Frozen Niagara" flowstone formation:
Flowstone:
After leaving the cave, we had lunch and then visited the "Historic Entrance" which was one of the original entrances used to view the caves. Even though the outside temperatures were in the high nineties, the cold air coming out of the cave felt like air conditioning.
We then resumed our trip northeast, traveling toward Lexington. We camped at a little campground near Salt Lick, near the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was several miles off the expressway, so we didn't have to listen to trucks all night, but it was a bit run down. Looked like a lot of folks were living in their campers, not just tourists.
One more day of traveling and we will be home.
# posted by Marty Hankins @ 9:29 AM 
