Our First Kentucky Camping Trip - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog series, we took our first Kentucky camping trip to Natural Bridge State Resort Park, hiking within it and parts of the Red River Gorge Geological Area.

Hiking the Rock Bridge trail, in front of Creation Falls

After finishing our hike on the Sky Bridge Trail, we drove south, down a gravel road to the parking area for the trailhead for the Rock Bridge Trail.  Rock Bridge is labeled as a moderate, 1.4 mile loop, and it passes by a lovely waterfall en route to the Bridge itself.  Rock Bridge is also known as the only true bridge in the area, as it is the only one where water passes underneath (I guess the other Bridges are technically arches instead?).

I mean, the sign says so, and who am I to argue with an official park sign?

Since Rock Bridge was set down further into the forest (the Daniel Boone National Forest, I believe) than Sky Bridge, the vegetation was thicker and towered above us.  I'm sure it will eventually become old to both of us, but for now, seeing so much green everywhere is still thrilling.

Happy trees growing out of the tops of massive stone formations always made us smile

 A big leaf magnolia tree

The leaves were impressively gigantic - at least three feet long and a foot wide

We passed lots of neat sandstone features, and we eventually made our way to Creation Falls (named because the erosion from its water flow created Rock Bridge) and the Bridge itself.

Creation Falls - this was a really low flow day, since it hadn't rained in a while

And there's the Bridge!

The rest of the loop back was just as picturesque, and we finished our hike happy to have seen this lovely trail, even if we were pretty darn sweaty by the time we made it back to the truck.

It was around 11am, and while we noshed on Cheez-Its in the truck, we deliberated whether to head to lunch right away or squeeze in another hike before doing so.  We voted for lunch, and it's a good thing we did; even though we arrived pretty early at Miguel's Pizza, the joint was already hopping, and we waited a good 30-40 minutes for our food.  Thankfully, Miguel's has a massive outdoor seating area; it was lovely to sit and wait in the shade while the breeze was gently blowing.

The front of Miguel's - the order counter and indoor seating are in this building

Time to eat!  We ordered a half pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and artichokes,

as well as some cheesy bread.

Everything was good but not great, but the lovely setting made up for it.

Used hiking boots and trail shoes hanging from a tree in the parking lot

After eating a lot of carbs and sitting in the shade for an hour or so, we decided we were done hiking for the day, and we headed back to the camper for showers and naps.  Around 3, we got ourselves dressed and moving again, as we had one more activity planned for the afternoon - a pontoon boat tour of the underside of the Gorge!

When I researched this trip, I kept running across links to the Gorge Underground, a tourist activity offering boat, kayak, and stand-up paddleboard tours of a subterranean lake within the Gorge.  Intrigued, we went with the boat tour, figuring by the time we'd hiked all morning, we'd be happy to have someone drive us around, rather than expend more energy piloting our own vessels.  The boat tour lasted about 30 minutes, and it was really neat - our guide was knowledgeable, telling us about the history of the spot (it was an old, flooded limestone mine, which the tour group acquired in the 2010s), the different creatures that live down there (they do have bats, but not in the summer - dang!  Missed the bats again!), and pointing out neat geologic features.

The closest we got to seeing bats on this trip...

The entrance to the Gorge Underground facility - more trees growing on giant rocks!

Safety first!

The space was mostly dark, although not pitch black; several green lights were set up in the water, which served as feeding areas for the rainbow trout the organization introduced into the lake.  These suckers were gigantic!  In the absence of any predators at all and getting fed several square meals a day, the trout had packed on weight since they were brought to their new home, and some were up to 3 feet long! (Because I was wondering, too, I'll let you know that due to the lights, these trout have not lost their sight, like others in subterranean lakes; while they've lost some color, they're also not albino.)

Approaching one of the fish light sections

It's hard to tell without something else in the shot for scale, but this dude was a chonker!

Most of the cave was limestone, although we floated past other geologic features as well, including a fossilized river bed and large several piles of shale, caused by folks interacting with unsafe pockets within the cave.

Approaching one of the ceiling features

The river bed

A shale pile - the staff added the giant fake spider for one Halloween,

but a shale avalanche came down and broke off one of the spider's legs.

They decided to leave it all as is from that point on.

Heading back toward the floating docks and the end of our tour -

that's condensation from the warm outside air causing the clouds

Having enjoyed the tour immensely, we thawed out as we walked back to the truck (the cave stays around 50 degrees year round) and headed toward the campground for the evening.

The road to the Gorge Underground passes right by the campground,

and we were the first site next to the restroom.

While the road made it a bit noisy during the day, it quieted down at night

(this picture is also zoomed in pretty far, so we weren't as close to the main road as this looks).

Hanging around back at camp

We finished our day just chilling out at the campground, cooking another campfire potato - this time, to go with burgers and grilled zucchini for dinner.  Tuesday was quite a bit warmer than Monday, so we ate inside in the AC and spent the rest of the evening watching tv in the rig until bed (we randomly ran across Tom Papa's "What a Day!" stand up special on Netflix and laughed so hard, we thought we might yarp - we highly recommend it).

On the final blog - we go for one more hike and head home to our monkeys!

Later!

Amy