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Friday, April 15, 2016

Exploring the trails at Mammoth Cave National Park

After our Cave Tour yesterday I headed out on the trails for a bit of a walk. Spring is just starting to wake up and in another couple weeks everything will be coming a live.


 Aayla joined me and we left the campground and headed toward the Visitors centre.


Group campfire area


Amphitheatre

Train car display near the Visitor center

Aayla loved rolling down the hill here.
 We headed back on the path towards the campsite as Aayla decided she wanted to go back to the camper. I hadn't sunk in all the nature I wanted yet so I continued on to Green River Ferry.
 I love the out cropping of rocks a long the way.

 Some Spring colours were bursting out.


Mr Snail out enjoying a nice spring walk too
 I had no idea what this was so I asked a Ranger and they found a different Ranger who could tell me...and 5 minutes later I promptly forgot what it was...do you have any idea? I think they said it was a type of fungus??? I Love the bright little caterpillar on it too.




A deer ran across the path




Eventually I ended up at a Blue Hole. On a sunny day I bet the colour would be beautiful.

 




I got to the ferry which was the end of the trail (as far as I could tell without a map) and I turned around to head back to the campsite.



 This time there were three deer resting in the woods.
 I got a bit too close though and they took off.




When I got back the girls finished working on the Jr Ranger booklets and we took them in to get their badges as we were heading out of the park today. This is the first time they have participated in the Jr Ranger program and they loved it. Sierra was so proud as she finished almost the whole book. She omitted the activity near the cemetery as she didn't want to go to a graveyard she said. She is even more proud because I bet her she couldn't finish the whole book in two days...and she proved me wrong!



Now we are off to Indiana.


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!