Day 63

Day 63: 7/19/15 (St. Louis to Mammoth Cave National Park)

293 miles

This morning we woke up at 6am so we would have enough time to pack the car back up and get to Mammoth in time for a tour.  We were extremely happy to send a few things home with Rico’s parents so we’d have a little bit more room in the car.  Before leaving, we booked the last nights we’d be camping which ended up being at Virginia Beach.  We tried finding a campground close to Philadelphia, but there wasn’t much so we planned to just drive all the way through to New York.  Once we had all of our confirmations we finally felt ready to leave.  Jillian fell asleep in the car since she was up late and didn’t get much sleep.  Once she was awake she caught up on a few blogs.

We arrived at Mammoth Cave National Park in the afternoon and bought tickets for the Domes and Dripstones for 3:45pm.  This gave us enough time to find a campsite and set up the tent.  We were also able to have a small lunch before heading back.  We met up for the tour and got bussed over to one of the cave entrances.  The tour began with a decent down 280 steps and a temperature change of about 40 degrees.  The tour ended in the section of the cave called the Frozen Niagara.  The area is full of stalactites and was the most picturesque portion of the tour.  Getting hit with the heat on the way out of the cave was definitely the least enjoyable part.  After the tour, we walked to the historic entrance which is a naturally formed entrance.  You can tell when you’re getting close because the cold air rushes up and surrounds you.  By the time we were 100ft into the entrance, we were getting so cold that we just about wanted to get back into the heat again. 

Back at camp, we ate the strawberries and blueberries that we got from the market in St Louis.  We were entertained by a couple of moths that kept landing on us and our tent.  We were playing with them trying to get them to sit on our noses – we were sort of successful.  Shortly after, the rain started moving in so we hid in the car and continued blogging.  The wifi was getting a little spotty at our campsite (can we really complain) so we drove over to the visitor center hoping for a better connection.  We posted a few blogs and searched for more apartments before the rain finally stopped.  We headed back to heat up our leftovers for dinner which was just perfect for our first night back in our tent.

Fact:

We got wifi at our campsite – wild!

Lesson:

 vIf you’re hot in the summer and can’t afford air conditioning, just find a cave

Eat Well; Travel Often

Rico & Jillian