Another really exciting day today! I was up and out the door this morning to ride to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky in time to pick up my ticket for the 10am Historic Tour. On the way through the park to the visitor's center I saw 4 deer by the road, just nibbling on the dew-covered grass, and 2 huge wild turkeys! (Yes, Charlie, they were even big enough to feed your family for Thanksgiving!) It was a good thing I'd reserved a ticket ahead of time because that particular tour, as well as several others, was sold out by 9:30am. I grabbed a park brochure and a map and we were soon on our way down the wide, paved path to the historic entrance. As we approached the steps leading down into the cave, there was a definite change in temperature as we could feel the cold air from the cave the closer we got. Down the steps and into the darkness, the temperature had to have dropped at least 20 degrees, probably more, but it was quite comfortable after being in the 90 degree heat on the surface.
The historic tour lasts 2 hours and visits landmarks like Giant's Coffin, the old salt peter works where they mined nitrates for black powder, Booth's Amphitheater, Gothic Avenue, Sidesaddle Pit, Bottomless Pit, Fat Man's Misery and Tall Man's Agony, River Hall, Mammoth Dome, and the Ruins of Karnak. Fat Man's Misery, as the name implies, is a very narrow section of the caves, but only from about the knees down. It feeds into Tall Man's Agony, where the ceiling height remains the same but the floor steps up a foot and a half, so one has to crouch to get through the next 30 feet or so. While we descended gradually to a depth of 360 feet below where we entered, we ascended all at once by means of 192 steps up from the Mammoth Dome. Mammoth Cave is the largest cave system in the world, with 367 miles of mapped passages, and they still are not done mapping everything. It's so large that you could fit the 2nd largest (Jewel Cave in South Dakota) and the 3rd largest (in the Ukraine) inside Mammoth Cave with over 100 miles to spare. All of Mammoth's passages fit within a 7-mile by 7-mile square, with tunnels lumped on top of each other like a bowl of spaghetti, as the ranger leading the tour put it. This is another place I want to go back to so I can see more of what the caves have to offer.
From Mammoth, I headed for Lexington and then Huntington, WV to Hillbilly Hot Dogs, a restaurant featured on Diners, Dives, and Drive-Ins on the Food Network. Interesting place, with even more interesting combinations of toppings for hot dogs. Check out their menu at www.hillbillyhotdogs.com. The garlic ranch fries were very good, and the West Virginia Dog and the Hound Dog I had were good too. I don't think I ever would have thought to put cole slaw on a hot dog!
From Huntington it was less than 50 miles to Charleston, WV. Tomorrow is my last day on the road, much to my mother's and Margo's mom's relief! I have to admit, 21 days is a long time to be away from home, and as much as I have thoroughly enjoyed my trip, I will be happy to be back in my own house again! Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive are just about all that stand between me and Catonsville now.
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