Day 6

Last night, after seeing Lincoln’s home, we drove to our campsite at Houchin Ferry Campground which is in Mammoth Cave National Park. It’s not nearly as nice Abram’s Creek, the last place we stayed. It’s a bit bigger (which means more crowded when full), RVs can stay here (they can be loud), and there was trash in many of the fire rings, including beer cans. Surprisingly, most sites are empty which is really odd especially on a Friday night. I wonder if the storms last night and the flooding in the eastern part of Kentucky canceled plans for some campers.

After arriving, we set up our still saturated tent and then we ate sandwiches for dinner. The cicadas are loud again this evening. G3, the only one of us who actually slept during the storm, went to bed before nine. He’s been really tired. Maybe he is still trying to catch up on sleep from camp, or Phoenix.

There is no hiking trail at this campground. So when I woke up, I laid in my sleeping bag for awhile listening to the bird calls. There were some I don’t think I heard before, or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. When I grew restless, I got up and read until G3 woke up. He and I then had cream of wheat with our hot chocolate and coffee for breakfast.

Last year, on one of the cave tours we took—I think Lewis and Clark in Montana—we learned about the existence of Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. We were intrigued and considered detouring on the way home to visit it. The fact that we needed reservations to take a tour and all the tours were already booked deterred us. We had no choice but to postpone our visit for another trip. Therefore, when I decided our vacation would bring us south this summer, I immediately added Mammoth Cave to our itinerary.

There are many tour options. Reading through the descriptions of all of them was overwhelming and, if you know me, you know I wanted to do most of them. That was not realistic or practical. So I delegated the task to G3. I had him select the four tours he was most interested in and then I looked to see what was available. I managed to get tickets for his second choice—The River Styx Tour.

Our tour didn’t start until 3:30 but we got to the park early to make sure G3 had plenty of time to browse the gift shop, one of his favorite things to do on vacation. I got him a patch for his collection and I got us an ornament for our tree—Kati likes collecting Christmas ornaments.

We still had several hours so we took a hike. The trail was mostly carriage way with very little change in elevation. So more of a stroll than a hike, although it was hot enough that Kati was visibly wilting. Parts of the trail over looked the River Green which should have been named the River Brown. It looked more like chocolate milk than water. At one point the River Styx exits the cave and joins the River Green. It’s just as brown.

The River Styx Tour was two hours. There were roughly 600 stairs. We covered about two and a half miles of the cave. And we descended down to the River Styx which, at 300 feet below sea level, is the deepest part of the cave. One section was so narrow—and not exactly straight—that it is called Fat Man’s Misery.

Mammoth Cave became a National Park in 1941. It is the longest cave in the world. At the moment, 420 miles have been explored, but the cave does not move in a straight line. Those 420 miles, as the tour guide explained, are more like a bowl of spaghetti. The passages are a convoluted maze. The cave is made of limestone and it was carved out over millions of years by underground rivers. (Kati commented that our tent is a Marmot Limestone and the rainwater carved it’s way into our tent as well.) The rock walls appear to be different textures in various parts of the cave. This is due to the air currents. Depending on the way the air flows it shapes the stone differently.

Native Americans were the first people to explore the cave. They mined gypsum using rocks and the shells of river mussels to scrape it off the walls. While they mined it extensively, no one knows why. There is no historical or archeological record as to what it was used for.

During the war of 1812, slaves were sent into the cave to mine for saltpeter which provided the necessary potassium nitrate to make gunpowder. The wooden frames that they used in the mining are still there.

In the late 1830s, Stephen Bishop—a man enslaved by the owners of the cave—exploded the cave more extensively than anyone else. He was the first person to cross the wide gap—dubbed the bottomless pit—and he did so by shimmying across a ladder left behind by the 1812 miners. He was also the first person to discover—and therefore, name—the River Styx. While at the banks of the River, we did not see Charon ferrying any souls across to the other side. I didn’t see Dad either, though I did look for him. I thought perhaps he might have been lingering in the shadows and that I might have been able to wave, but alas he must not have been expecting us. After years of exploring and giving tours to people, Stephen Bishop was able to save enough money from tips to buy his freedom.

The people at the campsite next to us are so freaking rude. The campsites are small and squished together and the people next to us have the audacity to be listening to music. Seriously, if you need to listen to music wear headphones in a public place or stay home. I didn’t come camping to listen to other peoples’ music. I want to hear the cicadas and birds. Not noise. Most importantly, I don’t want to be kept awake by people who have no consideration for anyone other than themselves. Can someone please explain why people think other people want to hear their music. It happens all the time.