Just a Big Hole In The Ground

(Steve, writing from Cave City, Kentucky)

Short day on the road today. Pam left early to pick up Maggie at Camp Bow Wow where she lived while Pam and I were acting outrageously in rooftop bars on Broadway in Nashville.  Turns out Maggie was fine. I wasn’t. However, even alcohol toxicity couldn’t keep me from closing up the RV and heading down the road to our next stop in Cave City, Kentucky.  Repeat after me ……. WHAT A GUY!

Cave City. Expected it to be a real hole (pun intended) 

 

but it turns out it’s a nice little town right outside of Mammoth Cave National Park.  We are spending two nights here at Singing Hills RV Park. It’s a small park behind an older home. After spending nights in gravel parking lots, having space between coaches, green grass, and very nice hosts is a pleasant change. We arrived in the late morning and settled in.

After arriving we quickly set up. Having our little truck is working out well. Now everything that used to require kneeling or belly-crawling to remove from the lower storage bins is easy - we just grab it out of the truck bed. Maggie seems to have recovered from her 4th of July fireworks trauma and was comfortable with the prospect of our leaving to investigate the cave and visitor center.

Once in the park we scored a new memento. We collect states and National Parks. We record the states we’ve visited by coloring them in on a little fabric map we have hanging in our kitchen/living/dining/bedroom area (cozy little rig). The parks are generally too large to bring home so, instead, we settle for a pin we can stick on our U.S.map. Pam found one with little bats that slide across the pin like they are flying. We got to add that pin and to color in the state of Kentucky. We colored it green. After all our time in the brown desert, green is a wonderful color. Kentucky has been a green drive. It’s really a lush state nestled at the foot of the Appalachians. 

This is the largest cave complex in the world with 460+ miles of mapped rooms and passages and around 600 miles of cave to yet be mapped. We had been debating which of the cave tours to take since Pam has bum knees that bother her on descents or going down stairs.  Some of the tours have upwards of five or six hundred steps along the way. Those didn’t sound pleasant so we opted for a self guided tour. In doing so we gave up seeing some of the more remote and spectacular sights but saved ourselves many hundreds of steps to climb and preserved Pam’s ability to walk the next day.

After our cave jaunt we spent a bit of time in the visitor center watching the films and looking at the displays that depict the geology of the area, formation of the caves, use by indigenous people thousands of years ago, early saltpeter mining by slaves, and final incorporation into the Park System in the 40’s. That all made us thirsty. Turns out a new establishment (Pourters Pub and Kitchen) just opened in town. Being new there wasn’t a lot of reviews to check but we looked carefully and discovered the letters IPA in the name of the place. We went, dined on ultra-processed cheese and chips, and awarded the place a B+. An A rating requires a bit more hopiness in the finish.

Back at the RV we set up chairs and sat a bit - given the heat and humidity since we left this was the first time we were able. Lots of birds! Nature came to visit with the bird calls, sound of crickets, and wind blowing through the trees. We also heard laughter and voices nearby. Turns out there were kids riding bikes and doing the stupid things you’re supposed to do as a kid - including playing together. No video games, no social media, and no oppressively over-protective parents negotiating play dates. If these parents aren’t careful their kids might grow up to be normal.

All in all, a good day.