Mammoth Cave NP

June 16, 2009

Being only 5 miles from the Mammoth Cave entrance, kinda mandated that we do at least one tour in the cave.
For anyone coming to Mammoth Cave, you need to know that reservations are usually required for tours in the caves. No-one can go into the caves without being part of a tour, and all of the tours have a limited number of people that are allowed at one time.

Because of that limitation and the scheduled times, some of the tours are sold out well in advance. If you go to Recreation.gov and click on Tours in the main tool bar, it will take you to all the Tours in the NP system. Scroll down to Mammoth Cave and the tours are listed, as well as the number of people allowed and how many slots are still open.

You can make your reservation there. It's not perfect, but it seems to work pretty well for people who are aware of this limitation. Hope it helps.

Here are a few pictures we took while on the Frozen Niagara Tour. It's one of the easier tours at Mammoth, with only 49 (optional) steps down and 49 mandatory back up. ;-) Hope you enjoy the pics.

ttfn

Paul

Louisville and points in between

June 11,2009
Another day, another trip

We're not too terribly far from Louisville, (90 miles or so) and we decided to take a day trip to the Louisville Slugger Factory & Museum and see what else we could get into. (well at least I did)

We ran into some light rain in Louisville, so I didn't get far enough away from the building to get the entire Bat at the Factory.

I did however take a picture of the post card we bought.They do not allow pictures in any part of the factory tour, so I only have a few for the blog, but I can tell you that the tour of the bat manufacturing plant is very cool.

As it turns out, a brand spanking new Tour opened on June 1 called Mega Cavern. The cavern is an old limestone mine that has been converted into a huge underground storage facility.

At one time it was actually considered a "secure" facility in case of a nuclear attack, and had a bunch of Red Cross supplies stashed here, just in case. Because of the way it's used, it is considered to be the largest "building" in Kentucky.

They have huge climate controlled storage buildings that have been built by "hanging" the walls from the ceiling, rather than putting in a foundation and "sill" like a conventional structure. Kinda cool.

When you're not in the climate controlled area, it does have a kinda musty odor, but for most people it would not be an issue. It seems that caves and caverns are prone to having mold and mildew in them, and I'm starting to think that my lungs don't like it. We'll see.

Enjoy the pictures.

After doing the Cavern, we headed back toward Cave Country RV Park, but took Hwy 31 instead of the Interstate. Just wanted to see something different.

We wound up driving through Fort Knox and I got this picture of the Federal Bullion Depository, just as the loudspeaker told me we were not allowed to stop there. Oops, my bad!!
ttfn

Paul