Day Twentyfive
Day Twentyfive

Mammoth Cave National Park, KY to Smoky Mountains, TN
July 7th, 2004

High Point of the Day....
Low Point of the Day......
Brian & Theresa - Spelunking in Mamoth Caves
Brian & Theresa - About 250 feet below ground level
Miles Traveled Today
Total Miles Traveled
Miles Theresa Drove
Weather
242
6935
156 (1607 Total)
Dark, a constant 50 degrees, then sunny and humid in the 80's
Price of Gas 
(average per gallon)
Wildlife
Night's Lodging
Where this Page was Uploaded
1.76
Cows, horses, loose country dogs, very big squirrels, one cave grasshopper, one deer
Elkmont Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Washington, DC

Daily Didactic
Our day began in Mammoth Caves National Park, after another thunder storm/deluge in the middle of the night. It's a cool thing they do with their weather in this part of the country. They have these fascinating thunder and lightning storms in the middle of the night that, apparently, can't stand the light of day. While the days seem to have brief deluges they don't last, and the daylight weather has been nice and sunny.

We headed over to visitor center and, despite having a strong recommendation to do the "Wild Cave Tour", we signed on for the "Frozen Niagra" and "Historic" tours. In retrospect, Theresa believes she could have done the six hour, belly dragging, wild tour, so we guess we'll be back... The Mammoth Caves, so named because they are huge, were awesome and we will be ever thankful for deep dark cool caverns in this kind of weather. After about four hours below ground, we resurfaced and drove east from Mammoth Caves, along some great rural Kentucky backroads though towns like Beaumont, Knob Lick, Marrowbone, and Static, down into Tennessee. After skirting Knoxville in the late evening, we arrived at the Elkmont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the night.


Daily Pictures (Slide Show)

Morning in Mammoth Caves National Park The long, steep, and tight decent into Mammoth Caves on the Frozen Niagra tour
Looking down into a vertical shaft, created by water flowing down from ground level to water level A horizontal shaft, created by old subterranean river flow
Pretty stuff A little scale
Cave grasshopper, which looks more like a daddy longleg Our second park ranger of the day. Short, loud and entertaining Park Ranger Jennifer
The natural entrance to the Historic Tour Artifacts from an early 1800's saltpeter operation
Tight fit Old school smoke graffiti
Yes, it would be It was tight for Theresa
Finally, a large synthetic animal of some sort. Allegedly a to scale model of a tylosaurus, the skull was inside. Hmmm, a trend...
Pretty countryside Kentucky backroad
Tennessee welcomes us back Cows at sunset



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