Mammoth Cave

Thursday night we loaded the van and were on the road by 5:15. We hadn't been on vacation forever and were anxious to find somewhere we could spend our fourth of July weekend. Dan and Sarah, in Ohio, were up for another vacation too so we looked at a map and met in the middle. Ah, Nashville... sounds perfect.

We told the kids we'd be arriving around midnight. At 9 pm Megan shouted, "Hey, we're almost there!" We looked back and said, "We are?" and she pointed outside at the new darkness and said, "Look it's midnight." We arrived in Bowling Green, 45 minutes north of Nashville, at about 12:30am. Dan and Sarah arrived a little before us and had checked in, getting two hotel rooms beside each other. We quickly said hello, sent Katie to sleep in their room and headed to bed.
After breakfast at the hotel Friday morning, we loaded the excited cousins in the vans and headed north to Mammoth Cave National Park... home of 367 miles of caves... the longest known cave in the world. We had purchased our 10:30 tour online. We handed them our tickets and climbed aboard a bus which took us to the 'New Entrance' discovered in 1920, just over 100 years after they started giving tours through Mammoth Caves. We descended 280 steps through the impressive and narrow walkways and twisted caves until we arrived 250 feet underground. The initial descent was my favorite of the whole tour. Then we walked over large pathways and through big chambers. I had Matthew in Dan and Sarah's front pack (thank you) and since there were no backpacks allowed Chris carried Luke most of the way. He was happy as long as we were moving but got frustrated anytime we stopped to listen to the park ranger. At one point they turned off all the lights so we could see the darkness of the cave. So dark! At the end of the tour we visited the Frozen Niagara flowstone formation and pointed out stalactites and stalagmites forming in slow motion all around us. It was a fun tour.

(photo of 'Subway Station' from Mammoth Cave website)