Cavin' (again)

Our tour guide

Cave Crickets

Stalactites

Flow stone

Stalagmite 'cactus'

Flow stone

Underground 'slot canyon'

Swiss Bell Ringers were here

Since it was a beautiful day yesterday in sw Ky, we decided to go underground. This is our second visit to Mammoth Cave. The first time we took the Historic Tour. This time we went on the longer (4 miles, 4 hours) Grand Avenue tour. Duane says I have to hurry and turn 62 so I can get my America The Beautiful pass. He got in for $12 while I am high maintainance at twice that. We didn't see a lot of cave growths because most of this cave system is 'dormant' or 'dead'. This means that no water percolates down from the surface. The water dissolves the calcium carbonate in the limestone and deposits it in flow stone, soda straws, stalagmites and stalgtites as it drips over millions of years. No water, no formations, so no 'growth', hence the cave is 'dead'. The caves were privately owned until the 1920's when the state of Kentucky acquired them in preparation of becoming a national park. In the early 1940's Ky sold the acreage to the federal government for $1 and became the 26th national park. At over 300 miles, it is the largest cave system in the world. The Grand Avenue tour is one of the more strenuous with lots of ups and downs and leaning over for low ceilings. Halfway along, the tour stops in the Snowball Room where lunch is available. We didn't pack food (no bags on any tours of course thanks to 9/11) so we bought bottles of water before the tour and the available box lunch at the Snowball Room. It consisted of a cheese and ham or turkey hoagie, cup of soup, apple, cookie, chips and drink for $7.50. A very good price but a lot of food so we split. The temperature is a constant 54 d F but even so we ended up sweating, shedding jackets, and drinking all of our water. In addition to the 1/2 lunch/pottie break we also had three other sit down breaks (one of which also had a restroom) and 3 or 4 pauses where we were treated to our ranger's history lessons and groaners--punny jokes. For instance, someone made a comment about the amount of rocks that have fallen from the ceiling since the water receeded. He said not to worry, the park has a good insurance policy. In case a rock fell on you, you'd be covered. And so it went. After our entertaining afternoon we reboarded our busses for our 5 mile drive back to the entrance. We arrived in time to head out for church at 4:30 then pizza for dinner. Today we are laying low until after lunch. Then we plan on visiting either the Shaker Museum or the Train museum before meeting (Duane's) brother Dean for supper. He lives in Bowling Green and drove here (Franklin is where we parked on Thurs and hung out ) to see our new rig and visit. Later he took us a tour of his golf club then to dinner. We head out tomorrow to visit our longest narrowest national park--the Natchez Trace.

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane