Mammoth Cave National Park

For a week in July, Daniel and I had the opportunity to head north and visit Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. First stop, Atlanta, GA. We worked on Tuesday night and then went home, packed up the car and headed out. We would be spending the night in Atlanta. We stopped at REI for the first time in a year and returned a roof case that we ended up not liking because it didn’t really fit on the roof of the Caliber. We also got a camp kitchen sink and a LED mag light that I have been wanting for a while. After that we had some dinner and then went to the place Daniel had researched to take pictures of the skyline at night. Best part of the photo session was that there was an awesome electrical storm over downtown and Daniel was able to get a few lightning shots. While Daniel was out taking pictures in the rain, the dogs and I were hanging out in the car when all of a sudden they started barking like crazy. I look out the window on the sidewalk and there is a rat running around. Very gross. That night we stayed at a Best Western. We got there and got our keys and went into our room to find that it was a smoking room. Gross. (turns out Dan had reserved a smoking room by accident). So back to the office Daniel goes and comes back and we head to room two which is non-smoking but has two double beds instead of a king. So back to the office Dan goes again but this time on the way back he finds $10! Plus they gave us the right room so we were pretty satisfied. Day two we headed to Tennessee to do some river rafting! Justus was our guide and we had a ton of fun. It was raining but we got soaked anyway so we didn’t really notice the rain much. Our guide was pretty fun. A big part of their job is just to entertain us. I was actually surprised at how little we actually paddled. He did most of the work but they definitely knew their routes and there were a couple of spots on the river where they purposefully got us stuck and soaked. Since the rain only got worse we decided to stay at a motel that night as well. We ended up finding a La Quinta in Nashville. It wasn’t the best motel ever and we likely won’t be staying in one again. We also won’t be using hotels.com again. Their prices aren’t fair and they were really difficult to deal with. But we had a really great dinner and Dan got some great downtown shots of Nashville.

So the next day we get back in the car and head for Mammoth Cave. During our drive we stopped for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and discovered that it was “National Cow Appreciation” day. There were people (mostly kids) dressed like cows everywhere. If you don’t know about Chick-Fil-A, it’s like Burger King with chicken. And all their ads are cows trying to convince you to “Eat mor chikin”. They always have poor spelling and grammar. They are pretty entertaining.

So after lunch, we were looking around on facebook and saw that a friend won a photography award so we were looking through all the other winners of this contest and came to the “honorable mention.”

Dan: That’s not a very good shot Me: No I don’t like it. It won something? D: Yea, it got an honorable mention. M: Oh. That’s what they give people when their shots are kinda interesting but not good enough to actually win anything. D: My crater lake shot got an honorable mention in a Outdoor Photographer Magazine! M: ………I love you. D: uh huh.

That night we got to our campsite at Mammoth Cave and set up our tent and our new canopy. (Thank goodness we got it because there were yellow jackets EVERYWHERE. More about them later.) The next morning we went on our first cave tour where we learned for the first time (but not for the last time) that there are 392 miles of discovered cave and that they are still finding more. This tour was known as the River Styx Tour and they are only able to run this tour from June-August because the river which runs through the caves rises and covers the paths down through this area so they have to pull out all the electrical lighting. This was a 2.5 mile hike and it wasn’t too difficult. When we got down to the entrance to the cave we were amazed by the change in air temp. It was in the 90’s and very humid but once you got to within about 100 yards there was this sudden change to very cool dry air. It was a nice change from the nasty hot and humid weather. This picture is an area of the cave where they mined for salt-petyre.

That same night we went on a tour that was specifically set up for photographers. It’s call the “Frozen Niagra Tour” and it takes you to the most photogenic area of the caves and is the only tour that allows you to take a tripod. The best part of this tour was the fact that Dan was the only person with a tripod. Everyone else was in a group with a family reunion and was going on this tour because the time was convenient and it was short enough for the kids to go on. This meant that they all went in, looked around and then promptly left and Daniel and I got to spend a full hour down in the cave with the tour guides taking pictures. It was one of the highlights of the trip for sure. This picture is of some of the formations. Every one of those stalactites and stalagmites are from water and carbonic acid dripping. It’s crazy how just a little water and soda water can make THIS.

The next morning was our final tour and it was by far the longest and most strenuous. It was called the “Grand Ave Tour” and it was 4.5 miles long and had a lot of elevation changes. The cave is split into 5 levels and we went down to the bottom and back up to the top level on multiple occasions so it was pretty exhausting but it was pretty fun. All in all we traveled along 6.5 miles of the 8 miles that they run tours along in the caves. The things that these rocks do is incredible. This pictures shows one of the narrow passage ways in the Grand Ave tour. There were a few spots that got a lot tighter than this where you had to walk sideways and duck at the same time.

So that night Dan and I decided to go take some pictures of sunset and then hopefully get some pictures of the fireflies. We went out to sunset point and got some pictures of the sunset and then headed to a meadow for the fireflies. Unfortunately we never made it to the meadow. On our way there, I got sideswiped by at least one yellow jacket right on the side of my head and immediately started attacking me. The entire side of my head was on fire and I bent over and was just smacking myself upside the head trying to get it off. So we turned back and headed for camp and while we were walking back Lucy got bit and then we started hearing some loud buzzing so we all bolted. We then had to go buy some Benadryl and I spent the rest of our evening practically passed out in my chair with a bag of ice on my head. I slept it off and the next day we broke camp and headed for home.

Monday morning, my head was still a little tender and this was when we discovered that I actually had at least three separate bites. When it happened my entire head was throbbing so it was hard to tell. We drove down to Burgess falls in Tennessee and hiked down to the Big Falls. It was really impressive and was a pretty challenging hike. Dan took some photos and I read my Kindle. After that we hiked back up the trail to the car and headed for the motel.

That night we stayed at another Best Western and had no issues which was nice. I had a bit of a stomach ache and had a hard time getting comfortable. Sleep was pretty elusive that night and when I woke up in the morning my eyes felt funny. I got up and looked in the mirror only to discover that my eyes (mostly the right) were swollen. This freaked me out but I figured it was related to the yellow jacket bites so I took some more benadryl and waited for it to kick in. Then I waited some more. Then I took some more Benadryl and started researching on the internet what the heck was going on. Turns out that eye swelling is a normal side effect of yellow jacket stings to the head/face. The eye socket acts like a trough and all the fluid that your body is sending to the area to fight the toxins settles there and you get swelling. It isn’t technically an allergic reaction, it’s just your body getting the venom out of your body. There was never any concern about my breathing. I think we are still going to look into getting an epi pen for the future though just to be safe.

Tuesday we woke up and my eyes were still swollen but we decided to stick to our plans and stop at Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia to see one of the waterfalls their. I have to admit that this was probably the most disappointing stop of our trip. I was already not feeling so great because of my face and the hike down to this waterfall was unexpectedly challenging. There were 222 steps down to this waterfall. This doesn’t even count the log steps that they place in the trail. Plus these were not dog friendly steps. The steps were grated so we had to carry the pups down to the bottom. The worst part was that when we got down to the waterfall, there was a trickle coming down. Not even worthy of taking any pictures. Talk about disappointing. Now we had to climb back up the 222 steps carrying the dogs. We were tired and cranky by the time we got back to the car and we headed for home.

We got home late Tuesday night, bathed the pups, unpacked, showered, and then passed out. All in all it was an awesome trip and we can’t wait for our next adventure.