Thursday, March 21st.
We were up early and off after breakfast by about 9. We drove for about two hours when I saw a sign for Mammouth Caves and talked Shayna into investigating. The national park was only ten minutes off the highway and admission was free. When we got to the visitor centre we checked out a few tours and elected to take the Drips and Formations tour. The caves have been known since the days of the natives but were privately owned and explored up until 1941 when the National Parks Service took them over. We dressed for the cooler weather expected below. We boarded a green school bus that took us to the entrance and with a guide and about 60 people we descended into the cave. The tour was about 2 hours and included over 700 stairs but only covered about a 1/2 mile (of the over 600 miles and counting) of mapped caves. We saw formations that showed underground river flow and massive blocks of limestone. At the end section we saw some great stalactites and stalagmites including a large formation called frozen Niagara. The female guide was very informative and quite funny. Thankfully the climb out was much easier than the long hundred step descent at the beginning. After rinsing our shoes in a disinfectant to kill the white nose fungus spores that have killed off over 90% of the bat inhabitants we got back in the car and headed out again. We drove from about 4 to 9. We got stuck in a long traffic jam around Louisville Kentucky that cleared as suddenly and without obvious cause as it began. It was dark by the time we found a Hampton Inn somewhere north of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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