Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Day 14
A driving day. We drove through eastern Kentucky, through mountainous West Virginia, and through western Maryland home to Hampstead. Interstate all the way. (Except for a detour through Clarksburg, WV, to have lunch at a Dairy Queen).
It's good to be home, but we miss Meg and Jared and Shiloh already. Lots to catch up on; we unloaded the camper as soon as we got home (it's really HOT here) and started doing laundry. We were too tired and too hot to do much of anything last night, so after a quick supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and a bit of Public TV, we went to bed. Tomorrow it's back to our normal routine.
Keeping this blog has been fun. I hope you have enjoyed our trip as much as we have.
It's good to be home, but we miss Meg and Jared and Shiloh already. Lots to catch up on; we unloaded the camper as soon as we got home (it's really HOT here) and started doing laundry. We were too tired and too hot to do much of anything last night, so after a quick supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and a bit of Public TV, we went to bed. Tomorrow it's back to our normal routine.
Keeping this blog has been fun. I hope you have enjoyed our trip as much as we have.
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.
Day 12
In the morning we drove up into the foothills of the Ozark Mountains to the town of Hot Springs and Hot Springs National Park. Many of the bathhouses from the early 1900's are still visible on "“Bathhouse Row" but only one is still functioning as a bathhouse. One houses the National Park Visitors' Center and still contains many of the accoutrements of the former opulence of the bathhouses, including men's and ladies' changing rooms, baths, massage tables, etc. We wandered around town a bit, finding a couple of springs still visible on the surface. Most of the hot water is now underground, but there were fountains for filling bottles with the hot mineral water; we filled some of our empty water bottles with hot water. We then headed out of town, driving toward Little Rock. We found a gem store along the way and purchased some "Arkansas Crystal" for our garden pond (we like to bring back rocks from various places we visit to put around the pond). We drove around Little Rock and then into Tennessee toward Memphis. Our goal is to visit Mammouth Cave National Park (in Kentucky) tomorrow so we were hoping to make it to Nashville, but we couldn't quite make it so we are camping in Lorretta Lynn country at a crowded KOA just off Interstate 40. No WiFi here so I am writing this in Word in the hopes that I can get a connection tomorrow.
It's getting dark and I am sitting with the computer on the tailgate of the truck plugged into our exterior outlet and I’m beginning to feel the bugs coming out, so it's time to call it quits.
We haven't had any wireless connections at the last camp grounds, so I am posting these entries after the fact.
These pictures are of Bath House Row in Hot Springs. Only one of the bathhouses is still open to the public, Buckstaff Bath. The buildings are owned by the National Park Service and are being restored. The Fordyce houses the park headquarters and is open for tours, showing the lavish decorations of the bathhouses.
Bathhouse Row:
Buckstaff Bath:
More Bathhouse Row:
The men's area of the bathhouse was more lavish than the women's; here is the stained glass ceiling in the men's area:
Statuary in the men's bath:
Ken inspects the elaborate plumbing:
The opulent parlor:
A tiled bath, used for invalids:
The Gymnasium:
Ken tests the hot water, coming directly out of the ground. Ouch, it's hot!
Hot spring pools:
Art Deco architecture in downtown Hot Springs:
It's getting dark and I am sitting with the computer on the tailgate of the truck plugged into our exterior outlet and I’m beginning to feel the bugs coming out, so it's time to call it quits.
We haven't had any wireless connections at the last camp grounds, so I am posting these entries after the fact.
These pictures are of Bath House Row in Hot Springs. Only one of the bathhouses is still open to the public, Buckstaff Bath. The buildings are owned by the National Park Service and are being restored. The Fordyce houses the park headquarters and is open for tours, showing the lavish decorations of the bathhouses.
Bathhouse Row:
Buckstaff Bath:
More Bathhouse Row:
The men's area of the bathhouse was more lavish than the women's; here is the stained glass ceiling in the men's area:
Statuary in the men's bath:
Ken inspects the elaborate plumbing:
The opulent parlor:
A tiled bath, used for invalids:
The Gymnasium:
Ken tests the hot water, coming directly out of the ground. Ouch, it's hot!
Hot spring pools:
Art Deco architecture in downtown Hot Springs:
