Laboring Under Our Own Delusions - Part 3

Be sure to read Part 2!

We made it to the Mammoth Cave NP sign!

(Just not solely by foot)

Our last full day in Mammoth Cave National Park was Labor Day itself, and as mentioned in earlier blog posts, we'd planned to make this our third hiking day in a row, to replicate part of our upcoming trip to walk the West Highland Way in Scotland.  Unfortunately, our minds were writing checks our lower halves couldn't cash; I was having significant pain in a spot on the top of my left foot when I donned my hiking shoes (I think I caught my left big toe on a root and tripped while walking around camp, and it caused a hot spot on the top of the foot), and Chris' ankle was giving him troubles (he'd slightly turned it stepping wrong off the paved part of our campsite a few nights earlier).  After a short walk to the Visitor Center in our planned day's trail apparel proved to be too painful, we instead bagged the idea of another hike in the park and decided to spend the day cruising the local area via truck instead.

First, though, we started out with another round of breakfast burritos - for breakfast, this time!

Our camp's chef using the Camp Chef

Please check out the cool little beacon lights that clip into his Crocs.  Stylin'!

Noms!

We decided to start our vehicular exploration by driving part of the road around the park.  While many national parks have designated driving tours, full of cool monuments and overlooks and whatnot, Mammoth Cave is not really one of those.  Most of the cool stuff happens underground at Mammoth, and as the Park Ranger we asked about it said, "in a driving tour here, you're mainly going to see trees."  She was not wrong.  However, we made our way through the northern side of the park to the Dennison Ferry day use area to see what was shaking up that way.

Please click this to make it bigger.

Dennison Ferry is way up near the top right corner of the map.

As you might be able to see in the map above, there are three road crossings of the Green River within the park; ferries used to operate at all of these crossings, but they're all currently out of service.  While we knew we wouldn't be able to cross the river at Dennison, we figured we'd at least head over and see what we could see.  As we pulled off Flint Ridge Road, we turned on the four wheel drive to make the ride down Dennison Ferry Road, which was dirt.  We passed a few vans pulling empty trailers for kayaks and canoes; the day use area is a common spot tour companies use to launch a van full of paddlers on the River (we assume they pick them up further downriver, but that's their business).  Although the steps were a bit too steep for us to make it down to the river in our battered conditions, it was neat to see the River so close and check out the portage system used to get the boats from the parking area.

Bumping along Dennison Ferry Road

You just put your kayak or canoe in the middle slot there, and pray (?) you catch it before the bottom?

That's clearly where the boat goes, but I clearly do not know how this works.

After we exited the day use area, we decided to hit up some of the nearby towns.  Our first stop was the Ranger recommended Horse Cave; she said the historic district was tiny, but it had lots of antique shops, and like the tree comment earlier, this one was also right on the money.

We saw some lovely, rolling Kentucky landscape on our drives - it was so peaceful out here

Horse Cave, in the town after which it is named.

As I said, this whole area is riddled with caves.

Molasses, is that your cousin?

A cool old building in need of some TLC

There may not have been much in Horse Cave, but they had a selfie mural!

Our next stop was in Park City, the city found at the other end of the Railroad Trial we'd hiked the day before.  Park City doesn't seem to have much on its own, other than a lovely Victorian hotel and a few cute eateries.  We hopped on the freeway for the short drive to Cave City, where we'd exited three days prior on our original arrival at Mammoth (the six miles we were on the freeway easily confirmed our decision to camp one more night and drive home on Tuesday - the traffic was bananas as folks headed home on Labor Day).  Although there are lots of souvenir shops and attractions to visit in Cave City, only one really held my attention: Dinosaur World!

I would imagine there are tons of dinosaur-based attractions of varying price and quality located across our fair land, but Dinosaur World (DW) in particular has always held a special place in my heart.  See, the original location is in Plant City, Florida, an area we'd often drive through from our home in the Tampa Bay area to visit Mom's parents near Orlando.  After literal years of pleading, Mom eventually relented and took my brother Jim and I, leading to many amazing memories and this incredible picture:

I'm sorry this is blurry, but I'm pretty sure this was originally a physical print,

scanned by an early digital camera or scanner, and then saved onto an extremely old computer.

I can't tell if I love the slouch socks or the jean shorts best.

My OneDrive dated this as from 2003, but it's likely older than that.

When I was planning our Mammoth trip, and I saw that there was another branch of the original DW located in Cave City, I knew we'd have to stop.  While we didn't pay the actual admission fee and tour the grounds, we did stop to take pictures in the parking lot and buy a magnet - that $6 purchase was more than worth it!

*pterodactyl sounds*

With my bada$$ magnet and the trash can

The gift shop main entrance - I don't think that's how a T-Rex works

You know, I appreciate their honesty.  These aren't "gems" folks, they're just rocks, albeit colorful ones.

Exiting Dinosaur World, we were famished (all that excitement!), so we considered our lunch options.  We'd planned to enjoy another lunch of charcuterie, which we'd been carting around in our cooler in the back seat of the truck this entire time.  Our initial plan was to go to Glasgow again for dinner, but since we were already out and about, we pivoted and headed there for lunch instead.  Yancey's Gastropub & Brewery was our intended stop, but they and almost everyone else in the historic town square were closed for the Labor Day holiday.  Wandering just a bit further, we found that The Hive Coffee was open, they were serving lunch, and their options looked amazing.  We ordered our iced beverages of choice (coffee for Chris, chai for me), as well as three of their stuffed croissants, also made in house.  Everything was incredible!

We were stuck behind this gentleman for a few miles on the way to Glasgow.

This is pretty common near our house, too.

Historic Glasgow is darn cute, even when it's closed

Croissants and caffeine at the Hive

Full of carbs, we headed back to the campground through Park City, passing many of the sights we'd seen the day before on our hike on the Railroad Trail.

One of the road crossings on the trail

Sloan's Pond, site of our lunch and break times

The trail crossing to the Eaton Valley overlook

Back at site 87, we both decided a nap was definitely in order.  Chris sacked out in the camper, while I set up our camp hammock and dozed in there, which was awesome; the light breeze rocked me to sleep, and the thin hammock material was nice and breathable.

All tucked in!

Travel trailer glamour shot!

Chris pontificating while soaking his feet

As on previous evenings, we hung out at our campsite and had our campfire time.  We didn't have any animal visitors this night; we assume that since many campers cleared out and headed home, the turkeys and deer didn't feel that heading to the campground was worth the hike (not as many snacks to be had).  We enjoyed our leftover charcuterie for dinner and eventually headed to bed, packing up our outdoor setup before doing so - the weather forecast called for lots of rain first thing in the morning, and we didn't want to be handling all of that in a downpour (did it rain?  Of course it did not. However, had we left everything out, it absolutely would have).

The next morning, we meandered over to the Lodge at Mammoth Cave for coffee, tea, and breakfast.  Since we wanted to get on the road pretty soon, having someone else make us food and clean up afterward sounded great, and our meal was quite good - very fresh and the pancakes were huge!  Once back at camp, we finished our tear down process and after dumping tanks, we were on the road around 9:15.  We stopped just once, at the Shelbyville/Simpsonville rest stop along the 64, where we enjoyed more chicken salad wraps for lunch.  After that, we pushed home, pulling in just before 2pm.  We dropped off the rig, headed to CVS for some flu shots (hooray, adulting!), and picked up the girls from their stay in Berea with Jackie.  With everyone back together at home, it was time for some truly amazing showers (indoor plumbing is INCREDIBLE) and cuddles!

Bea says, "Dad, this arm is mine."

Zoe, sitting pretty at Jackie's

Overall, our time at Mammoth Cave NP was awesome!  It's a great park with lots to offer, including an incredible Visitor Center with knowledgeable rangers, good food close by at the Lodge, nice hiking, and of course, miles and miles of caves to explore.  We hope we'll be able to get back soon!

Later!

Amy