Cave Tours in Kentucky

October 26, 2013

This morning we headed over to Mammoth Caves National Park to take one of their cave tours.  Before we reached the Visitor Centre, we spotted a deer feeding on the lawn.

Doe munching on the frosty grass.

We don't have a photo but the grass was all white. Not sure how they do that here at Mammoth National Park but I suspect it may have been the sub-freezing temperature.

We arrive at about 9:00 AM for a 9:30 tour only to find that we are now in the Central Time Zone. That sure does answer to why there is so few cars in the parking lot. The place isn't open yet. Oops... we have some time to kill.

The "New Entrance" is really a door into the hill!

We used our Golden Years discount which gives us 50% off at all National Parks.  We took the New Entrance tour which was 2 hours long.  This cave tour visited only 3/4 of a mile of the 400 mile cave system but involved going up and down 500 stairs. We descended  250 ft. The cave area we visited was not as spectacular as other caves we have visited over the years but the rock formations were still interesting plus we learned more details about the cave systems and sink holes in Kentucky. This whole area of the country is rife with caves but Mammoth is the grandaddy of the whole world. We saw only a small snippet of the cave system here and it is still being explored so the 400 mile tally will increase for sure. It is interesting that all the exploration is done by volunteers who do all the work on weekends. Even the warden who work in the park and do exploration must do it on their own time as volunteers!

We did not have to traverse the entire cave system to find what it was like. During one of the talk sessions in a large chamber, the warden turned off all the lights for a total lack of light experience. She then said that this is what it is like in all the rest of the cave system. No need to go any further!

Bev's version of spelunking...the easy way with stairs and railings.

In the afternoon we visited the private Diamond Caverns near Park City.  This cave system was small at only 1/2 mile long with 350 stairs but during the one hour tour we saw some very unusual rock formations plus many stalactites, stalagmites, flows, etc.

Stalagmite in Diamond Caverns.

Bev poses with a "Column" in Background. Stalactite meets stalagmite.

Lots of formations here millions of years old.

A stalactite cut through and polished to show the interior.

Interesting contrasts in this chamber ceiling.

They call this formation "bacon".

Tomorrow will be a day of rest and fixing little things like a dripping water filter. We hit the road again on Monday, cross the Mighty Mississippi River and should end up west of Memphis or maybe even Little Rock. Warmer weather is waiting there for us.

Our 5th winter of retirement

We are on the road south once again.  Our 5th winter trip to Lo de Marcos, Mexico.  We are not in a hurry this year as we are not scheduled to meet up with our friends in Tucson until the 15th or 16th of November.  No rush to enter Mexico as there has been more rain than usual so the weather is still quite humid and uncomfortable..

We left one week earlier this year in the hopes of escaping the freezing weather.  No luck!  The winds were strong on the drive through Ontario and Ohio yesterday. Last night we stayed near Lima, Ohio with temperatures dipping to -3C (26F).  We boondocked at a Flying J Truck Stop parking lot.  Luckily we had an inverter which ran our electric blanket and we had the furnace on low at 10C (50F) to prevent the water pipes from freezing without draining the motorhome batteries..

Today's drive through the hills of Kentucky with ever changing scenery was beautiful compared to previous years' drive through Indiana which wasflat and endless farmland.

We are currently parked at Singing Hills RV Park just outside the Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky.  We plan to spend the weekend exploring the area and taking tours of the caves.

Here is a link to info about this area: Cave City, Kentucky

Home again

April 16, 2013

We arrived home from a wonderful winter in Mexico.  We traveled a total of 7,327 miles with our motorhome.  Now if only it were warmer weather in Ontario!!!  Maybe we will stay away a little longer next year.

Dallas, Texas

April 8, 2013

We stopped at Santo, Texas to book into the Coffee Creek RV Resort, one of our favourites.  Santo is located about 50 miles west of Fort Worth.  This time around would be a little different. We have driven the highway around Fort Worth/Dallas several times in previous years but had never stopped to visit some of the sites within Dallas.

We phoned the local tour association to book a guide for the next day -- the cost $50 per person for a guide to take the 4 of us on a 3 hour tour of Dallas.

Our first stop was the JFK memorial at the spot where President John Kennedy was assassinated.  It was a totally different perspective to stand there and see how close the book depositary was where Oswald took his shots from.  It seemed so much closer than viewing it on any film clips. The actual window is on the right side, one floor down from the top. Two X's on the centre line of the road, mark the spots where Kennedy was hit. These were the second and third shots fired. The first hit a stop light cross-bar.

Texas Book Depository

JFK Memorial

original Court House (nicknamed the Red Castle)

Two years ago the National Geographic team had closed the area down for 3 days while they filmed a documentary "JFK The Lost Bullet" where they recreated the event.  The documentary details the latest theories about the assassination using the latest technology.  It is hard to believe that the 50th anniversary of the event will be this fall! At the time, we were in high school, Grade 11. It was a huge event in our lives when we were young and impressionable.

Our stop at the Pioneer Park Cemetery was interesting.  The cemetery is 154 years old and contained a monument  commemorating General Stonewall Jackson, General Robert E Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Albert Sidney Johnston. 

Gen Robert E. Lee

Beside the Pioneer Park Cemetery is the Pioneer Plaza which features a trail with a flowing stream and waterfall plus a re-creation of a Cattle drive in the form of bronze statues of longhorns being driven by three riding cowboys.

The statues are larger than life-size by about 1/3.

The cowboys are so realistic.

Granddaughter Maxine thought they were real. The detail is awesome.

From there we visited the Southern Methodist University and the Highland Park area (high end housing). If you saw the news clip of the grand opening of the George Bush Jr. Library, we went by it. Impressive from the outside! Sorry no pics.

One of the $million homes we passed on our drive

Our final stop was the Arts District.  There are at least 18 large buildings of unique architecture in the complex.  And amidst them all is the old Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe which was built in 1898.

The cathedral nestled within the towering buildings of the Arts District

exterior shot of the Symphony Center

Interior of Morton H. Myerson Symphony Center.

Lots of angles in the architecture.

We would have never gone to all those areas of the city on our own. Thanks to John and Pat for the inspiration to so something in Dallas while we were in the area.  It certainly was worth the price to have our private guide to take us in his car around these areas of Dallas.

The only issue we ran into while in the Dallas area was the weather.  We returned to our motorhome after our tour of the city  in sunny 85F (30C) weather.  There was a severe weather warning issued for that night.  We missed the high winds and hail overnight but got lots of rain causing the temperature to plummet.  The high the next day reached only 36F (2C).  Brrr.... A drop of almost 50F!! That was the end of our shorts and t-shirt weather for the rest of our travels home!!  Boo hoo...

Benson, Arizona

April 5, 2013

We left Tucson to move east to Benson AZ, about 45 minutes west of Tucson.  We booked into the San Pedro Resort to use as a base to visit the southeast portion of Arizona by car.  That afternoon we took an underground tour of the Queen Mine in Bisbee.  The tour guides are retired Phelps Dodge employees.  They led the group 1500 ft into the mine, recounting mining days, techniques, dangers and drama of working underground.  As they point out in their brochure "It is always a cool 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius) underground" .

mine entrance

the tour group riding down into the mine

we were each outfitted with a hard hat, miner’s lamp and a yellow slicker

a view of the rail line for the mine carts

It was interesting to learn how the drills have changed over the years and how they improved efficiency

A two-seater on wheels! Ya gotta go when ya gotta go.

John displays the miner's lamp we used to light our way

After the mine tour, we headed to Tombstone for dinner but unfortunately we didn't get to visit any of the boutiques in town as they had closed at 4 pm for the day.

The next day we visited the Amerind Museum in Dragoon.  It is nestled in a valley surrounded by amazing rock formations.  There were displays of American Indian artifacts of the various west coast tribes stretching from BC south to Peru.

Amerind Museum at Dragoon

We then carried on to the Chiricahua Monument where we followed an 8 mile drive through "a wonderland of rocks".  We stopped at Massai Point to visit the exhibit area and follow the hiking trail around that area. The elevation is 6,870 ft at Massai Point.  The following are views of the rock formations from the trail.

There were lots of rocks with rock caps.

John and Pat looking through the telescope at the observation point

a close up view of the rock formations seen in the photo below

We stop for a photo op of the scenery with John on our route down to the park entrance