Camping Trip 2017-3, Mammoth Cave

I have wanted to go see Mammoth Cave in Kentucky since we moved here.  Nobody else seemed nearly as interested as I was, but I didn't care and booked the trip anyway.  

Mammoth Cave is a cave system that has 400 miles of discovered caves and tunnels, with still more left to be explored.  I booked a tour for us to go on, and also booked our campsite at the Jellystone nearby.  I figured that might sweeten the deal of the trip for everybody else, and it did.  

The tour was a few hours long, and it was dark, cold, and a bit damp in some spots.  

Joe is claustrophobic.

Jack is Jack, so he's not happy no matter what.

Justice is skinny, therefore he was freezing the whole time.  

Bo is little.  He had to hike the whole way, and it was definitely dark.  He is not afraid of the dark, but we were afraid he'd get away from us.  He did not, he was so good.  He whined less than anybody else on the tour.

I was fine.  I loved every second of it.  It was incredible.  

This is the cave entrance and exit. 

From the outside going in.

And this is from the inside going back out.  We were leaving the cave, so you an see how dark it was.  Our tour guide was great.  Funny and knowledgable.

Writing on the ceilings and walls from the 1800's.  People that took tours were allowed to write their names using candle smoke.  The ceilings are covered.  I love the old scripted penmanship.  Justice found his name.

So many neat rock formations throughout.  It was so dark, it was hard to take any pictures.  There were lights placed throughout the tour, but definitely not enough to take pictures.  Most of the walking part of the tour was by flashlight.  

Another picture of the entrance/exit.

Everybody survived the tour.  I'm glad they all went with me, even though one of them whined to the high heavens the whole time.  Joe is pretty claustrophobic and he did just fine.  He was cold though.  I think Bo and I were the only ones not bothered by the temperature.  I don't normally like the cold, but I had convinced myself it would be worth it, and it was.  

So, this happened within an hour of getting to the campground.  The campground had steep hills and Jack decided he'd take his scooter out on those hills without his helmet.  He certainly paid the price for that.  He's lucky.  This actually looks much worse than it ended up to be.  We iced it and gave motrin and it went down within a few hours.  The next day it was a little bit bruised but NOTHING like I expected it to be.  

See, a couple of hours later and he was ok.  Still shaken up, but the swelling went down pretty quickly considering the size of that knot.  

This Jellystone is big.  They had two pools plus a splash pad area.  Bo loved the splash pad.

Justice was such a good sport.  He played him for hours. 

There was also a water slide.  I have no idea why there are no  pictures of the actual slide, I only have pictures of them walking back up from sliding down.  It was a fun slide though.

Even Joe loved the waterslide.  

The boys were happy to see Yogi.   

Justice is so dumb.  I swear.  Haha. 

Lots of swimming.

We had a great time, and I finally got to see my caves.  I would love to go back again some day!