(Continued from Part 8 …)

So, we finally made it along the narrow Kentucky roads to Mammoth Cave National Park.  The place was tucked back in some lovely forested hills, and the Visitor Center was very well attended.  So well attended, in fact, that there was only about 2/3rd of a single RV spot left to park in, as most of them were filled with cars!  As I parked in as tightly as I could, and went back to see if cars could get by. I wasn’t as happy as I could have been, but upon starting to walk to the Center, I noted that someone was heading for the bus, and it turned out they were moving the car in front of it, so I moved the bus up and was much more comfortably parked.

We hit the well appointed bathrooms, then went to see about tours.  I had done some research on the tours, when looking at Mammoth Cave as a destination, but not about making advance reservations.  All but the self-guided walking tour of the shallowest, historic cave entrance tour were sold out! So, we got our tickets and made our way to the entrance, which was down a fairly steep path from the center.

The park is in south central Kentucky, and consists not only of the caves, but an area of the Green River valley (and hills around it).  The geology is a limestone ‘karst’, where the groundwaters seep into the limestone bedrock and erode it away, letting groundwaters flow deeper underground, sometimes creating underground lakes and destabilizing more bedrock causing rockfalls, or for the waters to find even deeper paths to follow.  These can create cave systems as waters flow to greater depths, and previously used in/outflows are left dry and unused by the water.

Mammoth Cave is the longest surveyed system, stretching more than 390 miles with potential for as much as a 1000 mile system.  This length is determined as having a way for a human to climb/swim through naturally existing openings, but not through active mining activities.

The historic entrance is where we entered, walking over a shoe cleaning pad (because of the white nose fungus that attacks bats) and then down a stairway to get us down into the caves. While this entrance looks massive, there are places just inside the baffle doors where it’s less than 6 feet tall and you have to watch your head.

But then you wind around a curve, and the whole thing opens up.  Quite a bit of the cave along through here was mined for calcium nitrate (saltpeter) during the War of 1812, but was later used briefly as a tuberculosis hospital, as well as a tourist attraction.

While we could only explore a small amount of the miles and miles of cave,  But that was kind of okay, as the cave was kind of chilly compared to the hot, sunny, summer day outside.  We chatted with some of the park rangers who were explaining about the caves and answering questions, and spent an hour and a half or so inside the cave.

While the caves are the main attraction of the park, there are lots of trails that cover the hills too.  We spent some time walking further down from the historic entrance toward the Green River (which used to have a riverboat stop), where we turned aside to see where the ‘River Styx’ exits the cave complex at its deepest levels.

After some more hiking around and then climbing back up to the Visitor’s Center, we get back onto the bus and headed off to our stop for the night. It was a short trip on the smaller roads to get out to I-65, and then it was an easy trip to I-71, then another short trip on the smaller roads to get to Big Bone Lick, which we arrived at just before dark!

Big Bone Lick is actually a place where salt deposits from the evaporation of an ancient sea are getting redissolved into underground springs which bring the saline water to the surface.

Animals would come to the area to literally lick at the ground, but the moist soil in some areas would be like a quicksand that the animals ( including forms of bison, caribou, deer, elk, horse, mammoth, mastodon, moose, musk ox, peccary, sloth, and possibly tapir) who gathered could get mired in, and after they sank in, the salty soils could help preserve the bones from decomposition. Plenty of prominent people (like Lewis and Clark) came during the 1700’s & 1800’s for scientific investigation and study of the remains.

The campgrounds were pretty nice, with each site having electric hookups and every two sites sharing water hookups where we were. That said, there were rules about not washing dishes by the hookups or in the restrooms, so we took our dirty dishes with us, not having the plumbing tanks in place.

The sites backed up on some nice greenery, though some had some significant slope.  I used some 2x material to level us up. Just at the top of the hill, at the end of the loop, was a trail that led along to the Visitor’s Center/museum and the bison pasture.

We spent some of the morning at the museum, and then watching the bison.  They have a nice-sized herd, with both adults and young.

After this, we set off to make our way to Buffalo.  We did make a stop at a Waffle House in Ohio, but otherwise we made the trip in good time.  While it was (surprise) dark when we got home, we were back, and all worked out well for us on the trip – it was a success!