Day 18 – Fearless Curiosity

Mammoth Cave NP to McDaniels, Ky – 81 Miles

Today I woke up without an alarm at 730 AM feeling super well rested.  Packed up, made some breakfast (oatmeal with blueberries) and coffee and went to go on the tour of Mammoth Cave.

I picked the historic tour mostly because of timing.  It was the first one they had for the day at 9 AM.  It was really interesting.  They took us in through the historic entrance.  The same entrance Native Americans used around 4000 years ago to explore the cave.

After the Native Americans it went unexplored for nearly 2000 years until pioneers started to settle the area and the cave was rediscovered.  The cave was pivotal in the war of 1812 for mining minerals to make gunpowder.  Eventually a rich white guy bought the land that the cave was on and one of his slaves Stephen Bishop was tasked with leading tours through it.  He discovered many miles of the cave, and was the first human to lay eyes on much of the amazing formations and large rooms that Mammoth Cave has to offer.  Must have been a truly amazing explorer to venture into the darkness armed with only gas lanterns.  I think curiosity is something that defines us as humans.  Without it you couldn’t really explain many of the things we do.  It needs no other justification.  The same thing that led the Native Americans to go deeper thousands of years ago, led Stephen Bishop to go deeper a couple hundred years ago, and led me into the cave today – curiosity.

Our tour guide was great.  An older guy who you could tell really loved what he was doing.  At one point during the tour he turned off all the lights except a gas lantern he was holding.  Then he blew that out too.

It was interesting to experience total darkness and silence with that many strangers.  I was hoping someone would fart.  Nobody did.

By the time we made it back to the entrance it had been around 2 hours.  It was cool to overhear people saying how great it was to see natural light again and how green everything was as we approached the cave opening.  Every time I’ve gone caving with my friend, Ryan, we always say the best part of caving is getting out of the cave.  The sensory deprivation that occurs while underground makes you appreciate the natural world up above so much more.  Smells are more intense and colors are exceptionally more vivid.

After the tour I hiked around a bit to see the spring where one of the rivers that is currently carving out new portions of Mammoth Cave (The Styx River?) flows out from underground and joins the Green River.

I was back on the bike by around noon.  I got to ride a ferry over the Green River.

It was a good 30 miles to get back on the route.  Mostly rolling hills, really pretty.

I was short on water for a while and by the time I ran out the map was showing 12 miles to the next water stop.  Once I got there, there didn’t appear to be anywhere to get water either.  It was already around 430 and I still hasn’t figured out where I was staying for the night.  I pushed on.  Finally hit a gas station.  Filled up the water bottles, slammed 3 slices of Hunt Brothers Pizza (they love that stuff out here), and found a campground just passed McDaniels to stay at.  About 25 miles away I knew I’d be pushing sunset by the time I got there, but I was feeling good and I had got on the bike late, so I decided to go for it.

Made it to the Axtel Campground just passed McDaniels by around 9 PM after asking for directions a few times.  Looking forward to a good night’s sleep and breakfast at the diner up the road in the morning!