Our next stop is Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky – about 6 hours away. We drove back over Newcomb Pass pulling our trailer this time. It was very windy and steep in parts but because our camper is small we made it over and down into Gatlinburg with no problems. There were definitely a lot more people on this side of the park. We drove up and down many hills in Kentucky till we finally made it to Mammoth Cave.
The park was really pretty with bike trails, hiking paths and trees – a nice surprise. For some reason I was expecting dirt and rocks . We set up camp and after dinner went to find the showers. There were no showers at Deep Creek and while we took brief showers in our camper to conserve freshwater and not overload our gray water tank, we were looking forward to a longer (3 min for 25 cent) shower. We had reservations the next morning for The Historical Tour of the cave. The cost was $22 and the tour was 2 hours long. I’m glad I booked ahead as most of the tours were sold out.
We headed down into the cave thru the “historical entrance” following our tour guide ranger with about 50 school children. The ranger was excellent and described how the cave has been there 10 million years – way before the dinosaurs. It was heavily mined for saltpeter used to make gun powder in the War of 1812 and we saw original mining pipes and cars on our tour. The ranger stopped often for questions and the kids in the group asked a lot. I asked if they do safety checks and was told – yes, the first tour of the day ( ours) was the safety check. The cave has over 400 miles mapped and interestingly is too far down to even feel an earthquake. I would definitely comeback for an old fashion lantern tour and some above ground bike riding.
