Mammoth Cave: Day 1

Mammoth Cave National Park was the 10th national park we visited. We knew absolutely nothing going into this park, so we started our trip at the visitor center. We weren't surprised to learn that we needed to pay for a tour in order to go into the cave itself. The most highly recommended tour was the historic tour. It started shortly after we got there, so we signed ourselves up and got going.

The historic tour enters the cave through the "historic entrance", a large, natural opening into the cave that has been used for cave tours for over 200 years. There were Native American artifacts found inside this entrance which dated back to 2,000 - 4,000 years ago. Not much is known about Native Americans in the cave except that they explored several miles of it and scraped gypsum off the walls.

Along the passage leading from the entrance to the first big open room, we noticed several weather stations that the national parks service uses to monitor conditions and airflow within the caves.

Along the path were old wooden water pipes, which followed us all the way to the "rotunda", the first large open room. There, an early 1800s saltpeter extraction process was preserved. Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, was extracted by piling up bat guano (poop) into large boxes and running water over them. This pulled the potassium nitrate out of the guana and the water was sent back to the surface to be distilled for gunpowder, which was in high demand because of the war of 1812.

 

From there the tour went down and down through some tight spaces, passing over the "bottomless pit" and through "fat man's misery" and "tall man's agony". We fit without squeezing too much and didn't have to crawl, but the spaces were a bit too tight for Kathleen's liking.

The bottomless pit. Imagine it with no lighting

Kathleen squeezing through fat man's misery.

Kathleen fitting through some tight spaces

The last big cave feature of the tour was mammoth dome, a 192 foot tall, large opening underneath a sinkhole where water has been seeping in for millions of years. Here we saw a lot of dripstone on the walls and went up 60 stairs 

 

 

On our way back to the rotunda, we were fortunate enough to spot a bat on the ceiling! At the end of our tour, we had to walk over soapy, water-soaked mats to help prevent the spread of white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection responsible for the deaths of millions of bats in Kentucky alone.

So, what did we learn about the caves on our tour and during our stop at the visitor center thereafter? We learned that there are over 420 miles of connected cave and there are more areas still to be explored. The passageways and rooms were formed by water slowly eroding away the limestone as it seeped in, finding its way down and to the green river. Many of the features of mammoth caves are dry because of shale and sandstone found at the surface.

Cave tours into mammoth cave started over 200 years ago. Guides, usually slaves, would take people into the cave with nothing more than a few oil lanterns to light their way. Use of the caves, though, dates back to roughly 4,000 years ago with Native Americans. There are many names on the walls of mammoth caves that were burnt onto the rock using smoke. Only the ones predating the establishment of the park are legally there.

There are species that live nowhere else but in Kentucky caves, including the Kentucky cave shrimp and  colorless eyeless fish. The majority of the nutrient enter the cave through species that go in and out, including bats, cave crickets and small mammals. 

After several hours of touring the cave and exploring the visitor center, we decided to take Aiden on a hike around the park, above ground. On the hike we got to see the green river, which the water in the cave flows into, the sink hole that flows water into mammoth dome, and plenty of deer which were very unafraid of people.

  

Twin Arches

While we were hiking in the Great Smokies we came across a nice group that lived in Tennessee and knew lots of hikes in the area. We used that opportunity learn about other places in the state they enjoyed, especially because we wanted to find hikes that Aiden might be able to join us on. Their recommendation was Twin Arches in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. It was an awesome recommendation, despite a very gravely road in.

There is a .7 mile hike down to the arches from the parking lot if you're not feeling super active. It isn't an easy walk, and there are some very steep stairs.

But the arches are pretty spectacular. The north arch is 62 feet high, with a clearance of 51 feet and a span of 93 feet, while the south arch has a height of 103 feet, a clearance of 70 feet and a span of 135 feet. As such, they are very hard to photograph because it is hard to get far enough away without your view being obstructed by trees.

 

Since we were looking for a hike, and Aiden hadn't been able to go hiking with us the last two days, we decided to tack on the 4.6 mile Twin Arches Loop trail. The start of the trail was a steep descent into a river valley. It was a lovely hike, not all that different from hikes that we might do at home.

On the way back up out of the valley, we experienced a bit of how the arches were created. They were made by erosion working on both sides of a thin ridge until they broke through to create the arch. On the way up there were several other eroded indents, like shallow caves. They were all different and interesting.

 

Aiden loved the hike, because she always loves hiking. But she extra loved the hike because she snuck in a swim.

 

Overall it was a great way to see more of Tennessee, and to let Aiden get out and stretch her legs.

Great Smoky Mountains

It had been quite a long time between national parks, unless you count Los Haitises in The Dominican Republic but we ended our drought with the most visited national park in the country! Last year they saw a record 12.5 million visitors. We're still not entirely sure how that number is calculated but it seems to have to do with cars entering the park. The park does not seem to be built for that many visitors. The parking lots are not large enough, and they don't have a bus system. We were glad we were visiting in the off season.

We came in on the North Carolina side so we started with the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The weather had been questionable and they were thinking of closing the main road through the park if it made a turn for the worse so we decided to not spend too long on the southwestern side and instead headed straight through to Tennessee.

The drive through the park was gorgeous. The road was completely clear but there was snow building up on the sides and it was gorgeous. The views from the road seemed like they would have been spectacular if we had been able to see them, but unfortunately the visibility was low and we couldn't see much.

On the Tennessee side we went to the Sugarlands Visitor Center. From there there was a short hike out to Gatlinburg that Aiden was allowed on, so we started with that. Even though the path largely followed the road it was still lovely.

 

While at the visitor centers we asked rangers for hiking recommendations for the next couple of days. On Saturday we chose to do the Grotto Falls hike. In the summer this hike is very crowded, but very few people do it in the winter. This is partially because the road that leads to the trial head is closed in the winter, adding an extra five miles to an otherwise two mile hike. It turned out to the perfect hike for us for the day, and was a great recommendation. Although it did start snowing while we were hanging out at the falls.

 

Apparently there is also a lodge further up the trail that uses pack llamas. We were incredibly curious but unfortunately it wasn't llama string season, and was a little too far to hike up the lodge.

On Sunday we were planning to go to the Alum Cave Bluffs. The weather got better and the view is supposed to be stunning from up there. Unfortunately the road through the park was temporarily closed again so we had to pick a backup plan. A ranger told us that the Laurel Falls hike was the most popular hike in the park and that it is absolutely mayhem in the summer. So we decided to take advantage of the relatively empty park and check it out.

 

In the parking lot for the trailhead we ran into a super friendly group of five older adults who live in the area. They said the short walk to Laurel Falls is completely paved and a bit of a disappointment but if you go past the falls you can go another 3 miles up to Cove Mountain. We were hoping there would be a good view from the mountain, but it was still pretty heavily treed. There was an observation tower but you couldn't climb it. We're glad we took their recommendation and went up, it was a lovely hike.

 

There are a ton of hikes in the park that we didn't get a chance to do. We can also see how the park would be amazing in the spring and summer with wild flowers and new growth or in the fall with leaves changing colors. We hope to come back and do some of their view hikes in a shoulder season. However, it honestly didn't seem spectacular enough to for either of us to want to fight our way through millions of visitors in peak season. We seem to have come at the right time. 

Expense Report: January

January was one of our cheapest month yet. Between being broken down for a week and spending a week in the Dominican Republic, we didn't drive much and we spent most of the money for our Dominican Republic trip (flights and pet sitter) in advance.

Maintenance: We only had the new fuel tank this month.

New Fuel Tank: $112.03
RV running total: $19,749.89

Fuel: As always, if you're interested, go check out our Fuel log. January was an extremely light driving month. As mentioned above, we were stuck for one week, in Atlanta for a while and out of the states for a week, so no surprise there.

Gas: $238.24

Propane: $17.01 - We only had to fill up once because we had two whole weeks where we didn't need it.

Food: $228.15 - We were fed a lot by Tom and Joanna, Rüdiger and Maggie and by Anna, which food expenses are captures in the Week in the DR section. We did do a really good job not eating out the rest of the time as well ($137 of the $229 were groceries).

RV Stickers / Postcards / Birthday and Christmas cards: $4

Week in the DR: $711 - Anna payed for everything while we were there, so we need to reimburse her. This money included sightseeing in the national park tours, whale watching and all our food and bus / taxi expenses.

Phone and Internet: $55.23 - This is mostly late December to early January usage. We spent a large part of December in Austin and the first week of the new year at Tom and Joannes, both had WiFi.

Total January travel expenses: $1365.66

Total cost of the trip so far: ~$31516 - This includes the RV and all of it's repairs, insurance and maintenance
Days Traveling: 173
Cost / person / day : 91.09

Travel Update 17

After coming back from the Dominican Republic, we spent a few more days in Atlanta with Andreas's family. The only other thing on our Atlanta to do list was a brief visit to the CDC museum. It was an interesting history of the CDC and a great exposure to the concept of public health. It was again further confirmation of what we learned in DC, museums are slightly less interesting when you already have a degree or two in their subject area. But we always enjoy seeing how different groups present the information.

We were all poised to leave on Saturday, but our faucet started leaking. We were worried something may have broken during the sub freezing temperatures Atlanta had while we were in the DR. However, when we disassembled it, it seemed like a o-ring somehow got out of place. Putting it back together made it stop leaking. The whole thing took just long enough for us to decide to wait until Sunday to head out.

On Sunday, we stopped at a disc golf and dog park along the way. The off-leash area was tiny, but we got a good walk in with Aiden, who hadn't been getting much exercise. It seemed like a nice park, but inexplicable there were no dogs allowed on any of the trails outside of the disc golf course.

 

In the evening, we found a a place in Hayesville, NC to watch the second leg of the women's basketball Civil War. We knew we were in the right place because they had an Oregon Ducks flag hanging! One of the owners even threw an O while we were trying to sneak a picture of it.

It turned out to be a very emotional game because of the tragic and sudden death of NBA great Kobe Bryant, who had been to several duck games, met with the team and even built a friendship with Oregon's star player, Sabrina. The Ducks were able to play through the heartbreak, pulling away in the fourth quarter.

We spent that night at a lovely campground in lovely, remote forest.

 

The next couple days we spent working hard on getting this blog up to date. We told ourselves that we would not go into Great Smokey Mountains until that was done. So, we spent a few days in Robinsville, NC near Lake Santeetlah, which had some free camping sites along the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous there in the mountain town.

 

On one of the days, we went to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on recommendation from a very friendly librarian in Robinsville. We enjoyed the short, 2 mile, figure-8 hike through the forest before returning to our work.

 

After getting all of our overdue blog posts written, we finally went on to our next national park. Right outside the park, on the Tennessee side, are the towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Both of these towns are incredibly touristy. The latter made us think of a family friendly Las Vegas with tons of arcade like activities, fair style rides, and hotels galore. We took a short video driving through Gatlinburg:



We stayed at the Cracker Barrel in Pigeon Forge and even ate there one night thanks to a gift card we got for Christmas from Hubert and Emily, Andreas's brother and sister-in-law.

This past week has been a lot of fun. It's good to be on the road again without holidays or international trips just around the corner. We do wish it were a little bit warmer though. Looking forward to the southwest.