Day 28 - Mammoth Caves

Saturday we got up, left camp and drove up to the visitor parking lot to make breakfast. At least it was somewhat level and our plates would not slide off the table. 

We had intentions of riding our bicycles or scooter around the park, but the wind was howling at 35 mph and it was in the 40s, at least it was sunny.  We drove the Serenity to the trail head of Cedar Sink Hole.  It was a nice hike with about 100 stairs steps down and up. It is not spectacular to look at but a nice hike, of about 2.8 miles round trip.

On the way back we stopped at another short hike called Sand Cave. It is the site where in 1925 a cave explorer named Floyd Collins got stuck and ultimately died after 12 days of trying to rescue him. So many people gathered it became a party and it gave Mammoth Cave notoriety so people started coming to see the caves. 

It was a good way to spend the morning and get some exercise. We had tickets to the Historic Cave Tour at 12:15. 

June and I have toured caves in New Zealand and the Howe Caves in NY state, they were spectacular and worth seeing. What sets Mammoth Caves apart from those is the scale, they are massive, the name Mammoth is entirely appropriate. Overall there are well over 400 miles of caves and they are discovering and mapping more everyday. 

We booked the 'Historic Tour' which is about 2 miles long, takes 2 hours and has 540 stair steps. Most of the tour is pretty easy going but you have to watch your head, I bashed mine a few times before I started really paying attention. There is one section called 'Fat Man's Misery' that is a couple of hundred feet long with narrow passages and low ceilings. It was nothing like what we did in New Zealand where you had to crawl on your belly through water, but was a tight fit for big people.  It is hard to believe the PC police have not forced them to rename this section. 

Two miles seemed like a lot more, and every section was a bit different.  Towards the end of the tour we saw holes that seemed to have no bottom or top. 

We finished the tour in the lowest area of the caves. They had high water marks showing how high they flood to when they get big rains. Some days the tours are canceled because the caves do flood from time to time. In the picture below, you can see the post with the tape on it, the ranger said that post holds up the ceiling and it cracked so they taped it.  It really is a water marker, the tape marks the high water. He said he was glad someone put the tape there or the water might have gone higher. The ranger was not only informative but entertaining. 

We very much enjoyed the tour, there is a self guided tour that you walk through as you exit. If you get the chance, take the guided tour, it covers so much more, for $20 it is worth it. 

After our tour, we grabbed lunch at the food truck outside the visitor center and set off for our Harvest Host location in Radcliff, KY.  The ferry across the Green River was something we wanted to do. I checked with the Ranger at the visitor center and they said it will take up to a 32ft RV, we are about 30ft with the bikes and scooter, so we decided to go for it. We arrived at the ferry and there was one pickup on the ferry already, I was unsure we could fit in, but we just fit. 

We filled that little ferry, I wish I could have got a picture but we were not allowed to get out of the vehicle. June took this picture out the back window as we left. 

The route on the other side of the ferry put us on secondary roads to get back to I65 North for many miles. It was classic Kentucky countryside, lots of green and horse farms; since the wind was still howling it was much better than the interstate. 

We thought we arrived at our harvest hosts destination, Boundary Oaks Distillery, well before their closing time of 6PM. However, we were clueless that we passed a time zone on the way, we were back in eastern time, so it was only 45 mins before their 6PM closing. 

No worries, they set us up for a tasting and said stay as long as you want, very nice people and good bourbon. June is not a bourbon person so they made her a nice mixed drink. 

We did our tasting and I purchased a bottle of  Lincoln Bourbon. We settled in for the night and were treated to a beautiful sunset. 

Sunday we plan to work our way through a few more distilleries and end our day at another Harvest Host that is a brewery, Country Boy Brewing.  We are playing it by ear.