Recently we went to visit family that we haven't seen in several years as we lived out of the country. We took a slight detour to visit Mammoth cave. Both my kids love cave tours and have been talking about visiting this cave for at least a year!
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| The cave is over 3 miles long and here is a model of the many tunnels and directions of the cave...This is not a very pretty cave in that it doesn't have many rock formations |
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| The was a interesting museum we toured thru while waiting for our 2 hour tours and we learn many interesting facts about how tunnels are formed and why they take on their shape |
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| Kids were really hoping to see a gypsum flower in the cave but alas we did not. |
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| Learned that slaves were used to mine saltpeter which is used for gun powder during the 1812 war |
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| Dr. John Croghan, in 1842 also used this cave as a hospital building huts and beds inside the cabe believing that the cool temperatures would cure TB. It didn't and the Doctor himself died of TB in 1849 |
Other uses for the cave was a mushroom farm, it was used for a sleep study experiment in the 1930 and a civil defense site int eh 50 and 60's
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| We took a bus to the man made entrance to the cave entrance. There are over 27 different entrances to the cave. This one was built back in the 20's |
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| Entering the cave was sort of weird as we walked thru a concrete wall with a door and then down the first 180 stairs:) |
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| There are several tours that you can sign up for. We only had time for a single tour and chose to do a 2 hour tour which included nearly 500 stairs and about 3/4 mile of the cave called domes and dripstones |
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| heading down to see the famous Niagara falls dripstones. |
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| We spotted several cave crickets along the paths...Kids really wanted to see bats but they were in another part of the cave. |
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| The exit of the cave looks very much like the entrance for this tour |
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| We decided after the tour to walk down to the original cave entrance. We did not have time to go on this tour but hope to go back and see another section of the cave and visit some of the great rooms |
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| Before we drove off we a saw wild turkeys |
We loved seeing the cave and manage to climb all 500 stairs:) but boy did our calves hurt the nest day:)!
That looks great, but was it claustrophobic in there? It looks like it was from the pictures, and 500 steps? I don't think i could have done that!
ReplyDeleteCool about the wild turkeys! I've never seen any. That gypsum flower looks really interesting. I've never even heard of them. Were your legs sore after all those steps?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this awesome adventure; I loved it. It did seems like a great place to visit; maybe some day. The pictures and explanations were great; thanks! I don't know if I could do the 500 stair bit; it would be challenging.
ReplyDeleteBlessings for this learning moment!