2014XC: Day 36, July 17 – Nashville, Tennessee to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky (JellyStone)

Missed the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign too, but did get a pic of the cool rolling hills…

We booked a 9:30am ‘Historic Tour’ at Mammoth Cave. It was exciting that we were going to still do this because it was feeling like our trip was over, but just not yet. The tour was about 2 miles and took about 2 hours. When we got to the entrance of the cave, you could feel the cool air coming out of it.

We walked through areas that were large and open, and areas that were so thin and low it was a little scary. Sometimes we would look down to dark pits and other times have to bend down to avoid bumping our heads. It was really impressive. At one point, the tour guide brought us (there were about 80 of us for this tour) to a large room, and she only held a candle while she shared about this area of the cave. Then she blew the candle out – it was so dark…absolute black. Really cool. There was lighting in certain places, just for walking really, so it was hard to get any good pictures, but here are the few that I was able enhance slightly so that they were viewable.

Then we visited the museum to learn more.

Stopped at another Rock Shop.

Heading back towards the highway, we see a sign for “JellyStone Park”. The kids start begging to stay there, and fortunately they had a spot available. They had it all – two pools, a splash waterzone, a water slide, activities, mini golf…all the things the kids would want in a campground, and all included in the price!

And we were able to have a campfire! Just about all the places we’d been to didn’t allow it or we couldn’t get any firewood.

Thankful for another great day. 🙂