Have a Mammoth Day

Silly expressions like the one above are posted everywhere.  People at Mammoth Cave LOVE Mammoth Cave.

We woke up this morning after a very restful night's sleep and realized that we only got a couple of sprinkles of rain in the night.  We made our breakfast and coffee then headed to the visitor's center to pick up our tickets for our cave tour today.

There were lots of idiots on the tour.  Their conversations were painfully stupid, and their vocabulary often included such gems as "probablisitcally".

Once we were able find a spot in the line of people winding through the cave that was relatively stupid-free, we really enjoyed our 4 mile hike underground.  Some areas in the cave were wide enough for a small plane to fit in, while others were tiny passages that even short little Hannah had to duck down in to...although, most of the time when I was bent over double trying not to smash my forehead into low hanging boulders, she was able to confidently walk upright.

Fun fact: so far, there have been 392 miles of cave passages discovered, and they still have not reached the end!

While we were in one especially large passage our guide cut the lights and asked everyone to be silent.  The darkness and silence were almost palpable.  I would have loved to sit still for an hour or so in that complete quiet.  C. S. Lewis speculates that in heaven he believes that all the terrible and continuous noise of earth will be done away with.  Instead, he believes that all will be music or silence.  Hannah, though, hated it and was glad when we all started talking again.

We spent the remainder of our day showering, cleaning some of our things, and hunting for a place with wireless access.

We have been debating for a few days now whether or not we have the energy to finish the final leg of the trip we've planned out.  We've really enjoyed the time we've had and we're even sad to see it coming to a close, but, in all likelihood, we are going to cut the final portion of our route so we can get home and get some much-needed rest.  So, our revised game plan is to head north back up toward Louisville tomorrow morning and meet Jordan for lunch.  From there, we have a 4 hour trip up to Athens, Ohio, where Hannah lived for a few years when she was younger.  We'll camp in Wayne National Forest, check out Athens a bit, then head south to New River Gorge National River in West Virginia to spend the night.  Then, instead of heading further east toward D.C. and the Outer Banks, we're going to head on towards home, stopping along the way in Archdale to see Grandma and Grandad.  It's been a killer trip and we're having a blast, but we want to make sure we're enjoying ourselves, not running ourselves ragged just to finish out of sheer force of will.

The pictures we took while in the cave turned out blurry most of the time, and the ones that didn't don't really do it justice.  Here are some that did turn out!

(Not the entrance we came through today, but the original one that folks discovered)

(These are gypsum crystals that grow in ribbons because the high humidity in the cave leaches this mineral out of the porous limestone...I listened to the tour!)

(One of the big passages...these huge areas were all through the cave system)

(Flowstone and stalactites that make a formation they call Frozen Niagra)