Have you ever driven
a five-ton RV with your entire family and everything you own onto a sketchy
looking ferry? Well we hadn’t either and let me tell you, it was AWESOME! Mammoth Cave park is located about an
hour southwest of Louisville and we were told that it was a must-see destination.
Mammoth Cave National
Park offers multiple tours throughout the day to see the world’s largest cave system.
We decided to go on the Domes and Dripstones tour. Not knowing what we were
getting ourselves into, we geared up early and like two six year olds on their
very first day of kindergarten - we were bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ironically
we were told to meet at the visitor center where they loaded the touring group
onto large school buses that chauffeured us to the cave entrance.
After we arrived to
the entrance of the park, we off loaded and made our way down a couple flights
of outdoor stairs. We ended up right the middle of a
gigantic sink hole. Half made by natural disasters and the other half by three
bundles of dynamite. The dynamite was a strategic detonation performed by the
land owner back in the 1920’s. His plan was to blast away at the bottom of the
sinkhole to discover where the water was traveling. Well this plan ended up
with the creation of an entrance to a cave system that descends over 350 feet
below the surface. He was able to make a living bringing in tourists to see his
amazing cave discovery.
After we wrapped our
minds around the history of the cave, our tour guide opened the steel door
encased in concrete and the journey began. We had to duck, crouch, bend, lean
and even suck in our guts to make it to the first resting area the cave. But it
was well worth because at this point we were 250 feet below the surface of the
ground and the only sounds were water droplets from the stalactites. The scenic
tour lasted about two hours and covered a mile of the cave system.
Much of the cave was
only ten or so feet in width but the end of the tour ended in a open area
that was absolutely breath taking. It looked like something that you would see
in a horror movie; you know where the guy kills the villain in a creepy cave
and the gorgeous girl is saved and waiting for him and they have a corny make
out scene? Sort of like The Goonies. Anyways, not to get side tracked. If you are ever in Louisville, it’s
worth it to go to Mammoth Cave National Park and explore the cave system. The rangers were awesome too and one made a comment about being nicer "than the rangers in.. say, Colorado." He didn't know we were from Colorado... but apparently you rangers have a bad rap.
- Blake
From there we headed into Louisville to meet up with my parents! I was so excited to see them, and to sleep in a hotel bed for a few days. The first day we tried to get settled in pretty quickly so we could rush out to see the sights! Unfortunately we didn't made a solid plan so we didn't know that Kentucky has "winter hours" which is basically just where they close anything thats cool for 4 months. That would be our luck though. We still had fun driving around and catching up. We stopped by Churchill Downs and tried on hats and looked at pictures of the winners from years past. It was neat to see even though we skipped the tour. That day sort of ended with us walking around downtown just to kill some time before dinner. We did a little bourbon tasting at Jim Beam and then headed back to the hotel for the night.
The tricky thing about visiting Kentucky is that everything is pretty far away from the city so you have to drive quite a ways to see the big sites. The next day we woke up and planned to head to Abraham Lincolns birthplace - we ended up seeing the Lincoln family homestead.. we think. The whole thing was a little confusing but we do know that Abraham Lincoln was there at some point. From there we went to a small town called Perryville which was the site of a Civil War battle. We have seen quite a few of these battle field sites on this trip so far and I find them so interesting. My parents are super into stuff like that too so its fun when we travel together and see things like that. Unfortunately we hit some more winter hours and weren't able to see a few of things that were on my moms list but we did make it to the Makers Mark Distillery! I would recommend the tour even if you aren't that into Bourbon. It was so cool! All of the bourbon is distilled at that site and packaged and sent out. You can even dip your own bottle after the tour and it's really fun! My dad is a pretty big fan of Markers Mark so he was really excited about this tour and I think we all ended up enjoying it.
That night we made our way back into Louisville and after a few more bourbons we wanted a late night snack and ended up at White Castle. Have you guys ever had White Castle? My mom is super nostalgic about it but it's not good!! Its not good at all - I really don't get it. Blake ate 9 burgers though so maybe he disagrees with me.
From Louisville we made our way to Lexington - the horse capital of the US! There are some really beautiful farms on your way there. The landscape of Kentucky is just so pretty. We stopped and walked around some cute little towns and just took our time getting there. We spent that night just kind of hanging out and enjoying the hotel. Kind of lame I know but its was really nice to just sit in a living room and spread out - we got all of our laundry done and ate a bunch of chocolates left over from Makers Mark. After checking out the next morning we had a few hours before my parents had to leave to go home so we drove around some more!
As far as sight seeing goes, Kentucky was a little bit of a bust but it was so nice to hang out with my parents. I miss them a lot on this trip so I'm glad we've been able to see them as much as we have.
Blake and I said bye to them and then made our way to the Great Smoky Mountains! Check back in for that post later this week - happy Monday everyone!
- Brit
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