Operation Explorations

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Domes & Dripstones Cave Tour, Mammoth Caves National Park, Kentucky

We headed to the Visitors Centre for our Domes & Dripstones tour.

As taken from the Mammoth Cave National Park website here is the information about this tour:

Domes & dripstones Tour
Take a 4 mile bus ride from the visitors center to the New Entrance to Mammoth Cave. Descend approximately 280 stairs through a dramatic series of domes and pits. Continue the journey through large Mammoth sized passages and conclude the cave experience as you take a short walk through a variety of dripstone formations. The tour exits from the Frozen Niagara Entrance to the cave where visitors board a bus for the ride back to the visitor center. It's a great way to see the many faces of some of Mammoth Cave's passageways. ***This your includes the entire Frozen Niagara Tour route.

Duration: 2 hours Distance: 3/4 mile
Total Stairs: 500 including the initial 280 on the staircase decent
Difficulty: Moderate Tour Capacity: 118

We took a bus like this one to the cave entrance.

I'll let the pictures do the talking for the tour. The pictures really don't do it justice but you get an idea.

Hopping on the bus back to the Visitors Center

When we got back the girls found a hurt butterfly. They went to the ranger and asked the rangers if they could help the butterfly...sweet souls...and he suggested that maybe they place the butterfly near food so it can live out the rest of their life happily...so that is what they did.

We loved the tour and hope to visit and do a different tour again sometime.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Mammoth Caves National Park, Kentucky

We loved our Cave tour at Florida Caverns State Park so we decided to stop and visit the longest cave system in the world at Mammoth Caves National Park.

We headed to the campground to get set up first.

Had a bike ride...

Played in the leaves...

Did some crafting...

At some point we went and got our Jr Ranger books from the visitors centre and booked our cave tour for tomorrow, then came back and made a campfire. You are not allowed to bring firewood into the park but you are allowed to collect dead-fall from the ground so we were all set for firewood.

A favourite campfire pastime is lighting sticks on fire and creating torches.

As the moon came out there was more playing in leaves followed by lots of gymnastics. Sierra made a ton of gymnastic videos tonight.

Looking forward to our cave tour tomorrow!

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Gardendale, Alabama, Walmart for the night

This Gardendale Alabama Walmart at 890 Odum Rd was a great place to stay for the night.

We parked up from the gas station on the side of the driveway where the trucks were parked. Then we went in to ask where they would like us to park to stay for the night. They normally ask people to park on the other side of the building but they said if we were already parked here we were fine to stay where we were. Our slides easily opened up to the grass hill behind us as we only have slides on one side. The door did open up to the driveway so we did have to use extra caution when entering and exiting. We had cars passing us all night but it wasn't too loud and we had Walmart Wifi from here.

This is our second time passing through Alabama and we still can't add it to our travel map.

Next time we really have to work on changing that. This time we were passing through to head straight to Mammoth Caves National Park from Florida. We only add to our map when we stay somewhere or experience something with in the state. Some people would classify staying at Walmart as done, or even just passing through but we like to have a memory of something we have done in the State before we add the State sticker.

As you can see there are many places on our map we have travelled through getting from one place to the other but if we just drove through it's still empty. Hopefully the next time we are in Alabama we can have time to actually do something here and check it off our map.

Monday, April 11, 2016

REVIEW Florida Caverns State Park Camping, Marianna, Florida

We enjoyed a quick one night stop at Florida Caverns State Park Campground at 3345 Caverns Rd in Marianna, Florida.

VALUE 4/5
At $20 a night ($22.20US) This was a great park. Florida parks tend to average around $40.

SITE QUALITY 4/5
Our site was large and flat. There was a fire ring, picnic table and small clothesline for towels. We had lots of trees surrounding us so it felt very private. With our tree huger straps we had a wonderful area for the hammock. The campground is way back off the road so it is also very peaceful.

FACILITY FUN 4/5
There was no playground here that we saw but there was a nice large picnic area by the Blue Hole swimming area, trails throughout the park. They had equestrian camping as well if you wanted to bring your own horse. The Cave Tour was great and they do special evening flashlight tours weekly as well. That sounds like a different experience.

NATURAL SURROUNDINGS 5/5
The campground had a lot of trees surrounding your site so even if you had neighbours your site still felt very private. Your in the middle of a State Park so there were lots of birds, and other small creatures nearby. The cave tours is a huge natural bonus here.

BATHROOMS 4/5
Bathrooms were very basic but very clean and bright. Laundry was also available outside of the bathrooms in an open, covered area.

STAFF 5/5
Both the staff and the camp hosts that we met here were very friendly and helpful. They couldn't understand why we were only staying one night and thought we should stay longer. Our tour guide through the cave was excellent as well.

LOCATION 4/5
The park is located just over an hour from Tallahassee and slightly further from Panama City and the beaches making this a fairly decent commute time to various activities. Not to mention this location is made up a lot of natural beauty. It is also close to Falling Waters State Park so you can easily visit both parks on your stay.

OVERALL 4.5/5
We didn't spend much time here but overall we really enjoyed the park. It was a beautiful setting with nice walking trails. There was laundry facilities so I could catch up on some overdue laundry. The cave tour was enjoyed by all. It would have been nice to have a playground here and we can't wait to return when the Blue Hole is open for swimming.