Walking down to the cave entrance
The guy in the hat is George, our guide
How can a bottomless pit have a depth?
The park is really gorgeous. It's interesting that the stuff it's most famous for is underground when the surface is so nice. Highlight: on the way in, you pass some cemeteries from the days when this wasn't a national park. Grazing around the headstones were a couple of deer.
This is one huge tour. There must have been 80 people signed up for my tour, and it was hardly the only tour! Another one started at 9am, and there was another 9:30 tour in a different part of the caves. I can't imagine what this place is like during the summer, because it's clear that the local infrastructure is set up for lots of vacationers. At the campground I was at in Cave City, they probably had 200 spots, only maybe 8 of which were occupied.
Anyway, back to the caves. The tour I signed up for starts with a short walk from the visitor's center. Others start with a bus ride. First there was a short talk explaining that while the early parts of the tour have caverns and passageways large enough to drive a tank through, there is a segment called "Fat Man's Misery" and another called "Tall Man's Agony," and so claustrophobes really shouldn't be here. Also, there is a climb up a long spiral staircase (something like 200+ feet), and if you are afraid of heights ... sign up for a different tour.
There were two rangers assigned to our tour. The primary one, George, was our tour guide. George is a sixty-ish drill sargeant sort of guy ... I'm sure he was in the military. Very quick, matter-of-fact, and imposing. Wouldn't want to break any of the rules with him in charge! But he had a very dry sense of humor which I liked. The other was Paula, who was a young (mid-20s), good-looking, quiet girl, who really almost never said a word. Quite a contrast.
First, the pictures: the caverns and passageways were so large that the flash on the camera didn't make a dent. But, on the other hand, there was barely enough light to take non-flash pictures. The couple that came out okay are included here. This is just the kind of thing that you're going to have to see for yourself (and I recommend it!)
The first cavern was so enormous I couldn't believe it! The 80 or so of us didn't even make a dent. These particular caves were once an underground river system. They were spectacular.
Fat Man's Misery was actually a very neat section. Imagine a small one-man wide path through the woods, only it has been eroded so much that this path is 30" deep as it winds around. That's what this was like. Plenty of room for the arms and such, but not for the legs.
Tall Man's Agony wasn't so great. I had to walk stooped over for what seemed like an eternity, but it was really probably only 50 or 100 yards. There was a short section that was so short that even the kids all had to duck. But that was short.
The "Bottomless Pit" wasn't, although they built a metal walkway across it. Of course, it has a grated floor so that you can see that you're suspended high in the air while being underground.
Anyway, it was gorgeous and illuminating. Find a time to go and see it.
After the tour, I went back to the campground and then hit the road. Headed north, with the first stop at Coca-Cola bottling plant in Elizabethtown, KY. This is the oldest operating independent bottling plant, and the owners (the Schmidt's) have the largest collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia in the world set up in a museum. There is a self-guided tour that takes you through both the plant and the museum. However, I stupidly forgot to bring my camera in with me. So, therefore, the number of good pictures today is very small. Sorry!
The museum was great. There were lots of things that caused me to say "I remember that!", and heck, I'm relatively young in the Coca-Cola timeline. I really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, I crossed into the Eastern Time Zone between those two activities. That meant that I lost an hour, and I realized that I wasn't going to get to Louisville in time to see anything (I was thinking of the Louisville Slugger museum and factory). But since that wasn't going to happen, and Louisville was roughly in the wrong direction anyway, I skipped it, and headed east instead towards Lexington. I'm now here a bit east of Lexington, in Salt Lick, KY.
The plan now is to head to West Virginia, see something cool, then head back northwest to the SCCA Runoffs at Mid-Ohio, arriving Thursday night. Friday afternoon I'll head up to Cleveland, see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (yes, even though the real racing actually begins Friday afternoon), and pick Dad up at the airport. Saturday we'll stick around for the morning racing, then take off for home. Should be fun!