Cave Tour

Last weekend we went to Mammoth Cave with Grandma and Grandpa Kelly.  We went on the Historic tour and learned about how they mined Salt Pewter, used tree trunks like pipes to bring water into the cave, and saw some their cool landmarks. 

Before the tour Megan was very nervous since she didn't know what she was going to be doing.  She was a little afraid that it was going to be all dark down in the cave.  Bryson was pretty excited like the rest of us.  There was a short walk to get down to the cave and then you could feel the cool air coming from the cave.  It remains around 55 degrees all year round in the cave.

Because of the cool temperatures they were able to rent out the cave for church services, parties & weddings back in the 1800's before air conditioning.  It was hard to take pictures since it was pretty dark, but none of the pictures give it justice to how cool and interesting it looked. 

One of the landmarks that we saw was called "Giant's Coffin" it looks really cool.  At this point of the tour they turned out all of the lights to show you how dark it is and how you can't see anything.  It was also at this point that Megan needed to go to the bathroom.

Lucky for Megan there was a bathroom in the cave, but it was still about 30 minutes away.  She was miserable and we kept telling her that she shouldn't have drunk her whole bottle of soda for lunch right before.  She would whine and people thought that she was scared of the cave.  We had to walk through some low ceilings and had to duck a lot. 

Connor would try to reach up and touch the ceiling; we even let him down to walk for a little while and he loved it.  He had a hard time being held the whole time.  We were a little disappointed when we got down to the caves that we weren't able to use the hiking backpack that we had brought down.  So we took turns holding Connor on the 2 hour tour.  But after the tour we knew that the backpack wouldn't have worked out with some of the low ceilings that you had to duck under.

We made it to "Fat Man's Misery" and had to wind our way through narrow passages that also had low ceilings.  But not as low as "Tall Man's Misery" where Bryson even had to duck.

Once we made it through we had reached the bathrooms which coincidently was called the "Relief Room"  Maybe because you didn't have to suck in or duck down anymore, but it was a great relief to Megan.  Megan was in better spirits after this point.  I was even surprised at how both kids never complained about the 2 mile walk through the cave or the hundreds of stairs we had to climb at the end.  They were great troopers.

After the tour we got a picture with our great tour guide, Ranger Rick, who was amazing.  He was so funny and kept the tour interesting.  We then took advantage of the beautiful scenery and got some pretty pictures.

I LOVE this picture, everyone looks so good and it was the perfect spot for a picture. 

This was the best shot of our family.  We would love to go down there in the fall since it would look amazing.

On our way out we took some pictures of the touristy spots that we had past on the way in.

We had a great time and would love to explore more of the many caves that are there.  Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa for a fun time.