Our first tour in the morning was the historic tour. This tour starts at the historic entrance close to the visitor's center. We received a good overview of the varied history of the tour, from prehistoric Indian usage, to being a mine for saltpeter, to tours by the important African American Samuel Bishop and finally its creation of a National Park.
In 1798, the land was purchased and used to mine saltpeter. Because of the atmosphere in the cave and the lack of water, everything left behind two hundred years ago remains virtually unchanged. The items below are not a re-creation, but the actual supplies left behind!
A famous African American named Samuel Bishop was one of the first explorers to penetrate deep into the cave. He earned his freedom through the tips he earned from tour goers. You can still see many of the names that were left behind from two hundred years ago. As the ranger told us, names written two hundred years ago are now considered historic interest. Names written two minutes ago -- a federal offense ;o)
A fascinating story of the explorations of Samuel Bishop. There was a deep trench called the bottomless pit. So called, because anything dropped below was not heard to hit bottom.
Well, after exploring a side passage, Samuel Bishop came upon the bottom of the bottomless pit. And now, a huge staircase leads us to from the one passage to the other.It is amazing to consider the bravery of this man, who explored the unexplored, on hands and knees, with only a lantern to light the way!
●●● New Entrance Tour - Mammoth Cave National Park
We were told that this entrance was found by a neighbor of the famous Mammoth Cave property. He spent years of his life trying to find an alternate entrance, and finally found this one.
It was not until he had explored for some time that he realized that this cave actually connected to the same one on the "famous" but privately held Mammoth Cave.
The New Entrance part of the cave is more like the caves I am familiar with. It was made by dripping water, so there are lots of flowing features.
The most famous feature of this tour is the Niagara Falls. As our tour guide explained, many of the travelers who came to visit this site in the 1800s would travel here by train from New York, so many of the features were names after Northeasten locations!
It was very cold in the cave. Most of the time, I wore my hoodie with the hood up!
In fact, I wore this hoodie many times over the three week vacation, very glad to have it with me, even though it seemed ridiculous when packing in the 100 degree heat!
●●● The Drive - and state number 10!
Total miles: 310
Hours Driving: 5 hours
State Count: 10 - Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, TennesseeAfter spending the morning and early afternoon touring Mammoth Cave State Park, we hit the road, headed toward Memphis Tennessee.
We soon hit the Tennessee state line and Visitor Center. Unfortunately, the Visitor Center did not have a Welcome to Tennessee sign?!?! So we had to do with these ... dancing silhouettes... ?
Not really sure what they were, but they did provide a brief diversion in our ride :o)
●●● Bucksnort, Tennessee
When I was twenty, a friend and I made the road trip from my home town in Pennsylvania back to college at UT. We were driving through and noticed the name of the town... and had to stop. In a facebook comment when I posted my friend, she reminded me that the town at that time had a restaurant with a sign inside
"If you want it fast, go to McDonald's"
... made out of macaroni??
Go figure.
Dave had found what seemed to be a really neat earth cache along the way, so we stopped to pick it up, and it was, you guessed it, in Bucksnort Tennessee!
Too fun!
In this case, it seems that in 1833, Bucksnort was the home of a massive ironworks that employed hundred of people. The remainder of the furnace still stands!
●●● T.O Fuller State Park
Again, this part of the road trip was sort of winging it. When we changed our plans to include New Orleans, we realized that we would have the chance to go through some new states, including Mississippi. Then we realized that, coincidentally, my mother-in-law was visiting friends in Mississippi. Friends that were very important in Dave's youth... and it was only an hour out of our way.
So we completely re-tooled our trip, and planned to go through Mississippi the next day. That meant that we would end the evening in Memphis. Not so bad. Dave found a state park that was right on the way, and I found a barbecue joint also in Memphis.
Well, by the time we finished our barbecue and were heading on toward the state park, it had gotten somewhat late and dark. And the area of town was clearly not the best in town. Lots of bars on the windows and slightly scary people on the corners.
And quick look at the GPS indicated we were less than 5 miles away?? What kind of state park was this?
When we were about a mile away, the road turned into an industrial park. Better than bars on the window (I mean seriously - how do you lock a tent??), but still not ideal for camping. We were pretty nervous at this point... okay, if this place doesn't look safe, where is the next closest place we can stay, hotel, motel, anything??
When we were about a half mile away, the roadside immediately turned pastoral. And then we turned into an absolutely beautiful state park.
Run by a cranky old man, who barely even said hello to us when he collected our fee. ("How should I know?" was his response to "What's the weather going to be like tonight?")
And I learned a new camping lesson, parks run by cranky old men are **wonderful**. After having listened to revelers until 2am the following evening, we were pretty tired. And at 9pm, NO ONE dare make a peep in this camp. Nothing but crickets. It was AWESOME!
We quickly fell asleep, ready for our next day!
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