Mammouth Cave National Park, Park City, KY

Tuesday, 6/14/11 - After leaving Dollywood on Monday we drove back to our old RV park in Lebanon, TN for an overnight stay only. On the map it showed road 109 North, which was very close by, was a shortcut to Kentucky without having to go back into the craziness of Nashville. So this morning we headed out of TN for KY. Road 109 turned out to be really ok and with beautiful countryside to see and we eventually ran into I-65 North heading for Bowling Green and the Corvette museum.

It was a pretty short driving day as it was only about 100 miles. We are staying in a beautiful Coast to Coast park (using points) called Diamond Caverns Resort & Golf Club dcrg@1000trails.com in Park City, KY. Our plan was to relax this afternoon and go to the Corvette Museum in the morning. When we checked in there were signs everywhere for Mammoth Caves National Park www.nps.gov/maca . We asked the lady if there were any caves close by and she said, "next door." WOW, that's close. After we got settled in our RV space we drove back to the cave sight to check it out. We discovered that this cave has 348 steps which is far to many for Will and his back. She told us, that 10 miles down the road at Mammoth Cave National Park they have a tour called Frozen Niagara Tour that has only 12 steps plus an optional 98. So off we go, and fortunately they have a 4:45 pm F.N.T. and we sign up!

This is a beautiful National Park with a hotel, restaurant, large visitors center and many different tours of the caves all day long. The Mammoth Cave system is over 365 miles of surveyed passageways. Geologists think there could be 600 miles of undiscovered passageways.

While waiting for our tour to start we walked along a couple of the trails and then decided we were probably going to do a lot of walking on our tour so went into the restaurant to have a coke and wait. Finally, our tour was ready and as expected it was "old people" and families with kids. We boarded a bus and while driving us to the entrance the ranger gave us history of the cave, what we would see and the "rules" such as TOUCH NOTHING, leave no fingerprints anywhere. Actually, after the tour when exiting the bus we had to walk through Lysol for some type of fungus that might be on the bottom of our shoes.

The cave was very cool and interesting with very tall "rooms" and deep caverns. The passage ways were narrow but had hand rails to hold onto. I enjoyed the cave but it was NOT as beautiful as I remember Carlsbad Cavern. Actually, if we would have had time I probably would have gone on another tour alone - the Historic Tour which was 2 hours, 2 miles and 440 stairs. But that's ok, we got to see, unexpectedly, this beautiful National Park. When we returned we were tired but had really enjoyed the day. Tomorrow the Corvette Museum. Much love to all family and friends.