At Mammoth Cave National Park: Two Adults, Two Kids, and One Flashlight on a Four-Hour Tour

I think that the kids were looking forward to our time at Mammoth Cave National Park more than they were our time in Nashville--my personal recipe for happy kids is to put them in the woods and add plenty of snacks.

And all the caves added just the right element of mystery and discovery to get them down that last half-mile of trail, each and every time.

Well, except for the last time. I'll tell you about that in a bit.

Mammoth Cave National Park is gorgeous, looking much like the most well-preserved parts of our own native South-Central Indiana. And indeed, we've got caves, too, in South-Central Indiana, but none like these.

The caves at Mammoth Cave are closed except by booked tour, and frustratingly, most of them don't even have tours to book, but even hiking out to see their entrances is interesting, and we took several hikes like that.

Here, for instance, is the original entrance used for Mammoth Cave tours:

Here's the entrance and overlook of Dixon Cave:

It was still ridiculously cold on this day, and it seemed to sap the kids' energy quite a bit later on--especially Syd, who somehow managed to get her feet wet every single time we hiked--but as you can see, kids who complain about plans for going on a hike generally, if you don't point this out, change their tunes as soon as you've put them in the woods:

See? Happy hikers, and only one of them has wet feet!

We spent a day and a half at Mammoth Cave, all total. On the first day, we went on a few hikes on our own, explored the museum and visitor's center, and the kids, of COURSE, earned their Junior Ranger badges: 

On our second day at the park, we were up early, ready for our four-hour cave tour. I had booked us the Grand Avenue tour--it is described as being physically demanding, something that I figured was at least somewhat of an exaggeration, to put off sedentary people who would struggle with four miles of walking.

It was not an exaggeration. It was an awesome tour, and it was exhausting and I thought that I might die. Also, I need new hiking boots, because it turns out that going up and down giant, slick, damp rock slopes in sneakers is a terrrrrible idea, and I made it only by clinging to the railing and hauling myself to safety each time. 

As you might imagine, a cave is also a terrible place to take photos. The lighting is dim, obviously, when there's lighting at all, and when they do light up features they use some sort of horrible, orange bulbs. Here's about all I got from the trip--the rest of the experience just has to be lived and remembered without photographic aid!

This is an artificial entrance to the cave system, made with dynamite.

 

historic graffiti, made with candle soot

gypsum flowers

one of the few areas of the cave system that boast stalactites and stalagmites

I survived! Also, we finally have some photographic evidence of my presence on this vacation.

 

We had to disinfect our shoes on the way out, because White-Nose Syndrome is a terrible disease.

 So on this visit, I developed a new obsession. The visitor's center in the museum had half of one display that discussed a guy named Floyd Collins. Before Mammoth Cave National Park was formed (fun fact: much of the land for the park was seized by means of Eminent Domain, something that we discussed endlessly. On the one hand, I would be soooo sorry if I owned this gorgeous piece of property, with a cave on it even, and the government took it away from me just because it was so pretty. But on the other hand, that is, of course, the best way to preserve and protect that land, and to provide a means for it to be safely explored. But back on that first hand, someone's land had to have been just turned into the parking lot for the visitor's center, and that would have suuuuuuucked!!!!!), private citizens owned pieces of the land, and if they had a cave entrance on their property, they could make money by offering private cave tours.

Floyd Collins was one such guy. His family property included Crystal Cave, and he ran cave tours there, except that back in the day, Crystal Cave was off the beaten path (it actually still is, as you'll soon see!), and he didn't get enough people wanting to go so far out of their way just to see one more cave.

Floyd found another property owner, this time on the beaten path, and he convinced that property owner to let him explore a likely-looking cave on that property. If it panned out, they were going to cut a deal.

It did not pan out.

Crawling his way back towards the entrance to Sand Cave, as he called it, Collins shifted a rock, which fell on his foot and trapped it. He was squeezed so tightly that he couldn't reach his foot to free it, and when rescuers finally arrived, nobody else could free him, either. When they tried, there was a cave-in and then they couldn't even reach him.

Rescuers worked to find and free Collins for weeks, as the area around the site turned into an absolute circus--seriously, a circus. People brought their kids. Vendors sold snacks. It was the third most popular news story between the two world wars, and the only two more popular news stories were Charles Lindburgh's flight and then the abduction of his child.

Collins had died by the time rescuers were finally able to reach him, and then there was a whole other circus involving how and when to recover his body. Eventually it was, and he was buried on his family property.

The story does not end there! Later, the family moved, selling the property to another private owner. That guy reopened Crystal Cave to tours, and you know what else he did?

HE EXHUMED FLOYD COLLINS' BODY AND STUCK HIM IN THE CAVE FOR TOURISTS TO LOOK AT!!!!!!!

And apparently, Collins' family couldn't do anything about it, because they'd left his body behind with their property.

He's not still there. Eventually, he was reburied in a nearby cemetery--a fact that I didn't know at the time, or you'd be seeing photos of that, too.

As it is, I managed to drag my family everywhere else that I could find that was connected to Floyd Collins. Here is our hike to see the opening of Sand Cave:

And here's the crazier hike. The former Collins property is now on the grounds of the national park, and the park map clearly showed a 2-mile hiking trail leading to Floyd Collins' actual house. The map showed that there was a gate in front of the trail, though, so Matt double-checked our route with a park ranger, who assured him that it was open.

Friends, I am not sure if she was correct.

We dodged the gate, then walked down what must have been the road that tourists drove to visit the Collins property. It was absolutely abandoned, vacant and unvisited, if the trees fallen across the road were evidence that even park rangers didn't come here.

Mind you, this was the same day that we'd already hiked to the Sand Cave opening, AND done that strenuous four-hour tour, and now I was asking the kids to hike for four more miles into the middle of the woods in the bitter cold, down a trail that clearly didn't have the same upkeep as the rest of the park. We were likely walking to our deaths, Will explained, and refused to continue. Mad with desire to see the Collins property, I abandoned my child to the forest and walked on.

Eventually, the rest of us did happen upon signs of civilization, of a sort:

The site held up, but didn't show any more evidence that this was a place that people actually went. The houses were all unlocked, so of course we poked around them, and Matt turned up a newspaper from the 1950s.

Gulp.

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I left Matt and Syd to exploring the houses and I found a narrow trail that led down the hill. The remains of fence posts and stone steps, as well as a large planting of daffodils at the bottom of the hill, told me that I was on the right track:

And indeed, at the bottom of that hill I found the entrance to Crystal Cave:

I would LOVE to tour it, but it's not on the list of available tours.

About that time, just when the spookiness of being all alone in the middle of nowhere, nothing but abandoned houses and abandoned caves around us and the gloomy sky above us, I remembered that I had seen a truck parked on the side of the road about a mile from the area where we'd parked to hike in here. Why would a truck not park in the designated parking area, unless it was to hide evidence that they were there? Why would someone wander the woods not on a designated trail, unless it was to sneak up on someone? I had left my child at least a mile back, out of shouting distance, all alone on an abandoned trail in the middle of the woods. We didn't even have cell service. What if that truck driver found her and snatched her? What if she got scared by someone and left the trail?

Funny that even all alone in the middle of a national park, my greatest fear was other people.

Anyway, I freaked out, we quick-time marched our way back down the trail, Syd and I doing our special family call every now and then, then listening and me freaking out some more, until we finally heard Will call back, and there she was over the next hill. She was fine, of course, but my nerves were shot, and I was more than ready to leave Floyd Collins to lie and drive on to Nashville.

Except that I didn't, of course. Before the night was over I had put this book about Floyd Collins on hold at my local library, and it was ready and waiting for me when we got home later that week.

There's also a song of questionable quality concerning him. 

And a musical.

And oh, my lord, the Floyd Collins musical is being performed next month FOUR HOURS FROM HERE!!! That would surely be the most ridiculous weekend road trip that I've ever planned, right?

I should do it though, right? I mean, RIGHT?!?

Anyway... caves are one of our favorite science and geography subjects that we've explored in our homeschool, so if you're interested in studying caves, too, then 1) you should totally go to Mammoth Cave, and 2) here are some of our other favorite resources:

• Junior Cave Scientist badge book--can be completed at home, and sent in by mail
• cave painting activity--if you're studying ancient history, cave art is a super fun rabbit trail to follow!
• Make a cave diorama in a shoebox.
• cave unit study free resources--I haven't explored these resources yet, so tell me if you come across something great!
• Girl Scout Cave Explorer patch--Even if you're not a Girl Scout, badge books make excellent cross-curricular unit studies. And you can even buy the patch afterwards and display it however you'd like!
• NOVA: Extreme Cave Diving
• Beneath the Earth: The Facts and the Fables--got to interject some literature and some mythology!
• Journey to the Center of the Earth--Jules Verne makes for GREAT family read-alouds!
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Caves
• Journey to the Bottomless Pit: The Story of Stephen Bishop--he was an enslaved man who was also one of Mammoth Cave's greatest explorers
• The Secret of Priest's Grotto--this is a history connection for our study of World War 2

P.S. Like resources? You should follow my Craft Knife Facebook page, as there are lots more there!

At the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site

Amazing the adventures that you can have less than half a day from your home!

Day #1 of our Spring Break trip

We've seen where Abraham Lincoln grew up, right in our home state, and fortunately, where he was born is just the next state over,  less than three hours' drive and across the Ohio river.

We visited the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site on the second day of our trip, and you can see that the bleak skies that were so apparent on the first day of our trip paid off overnight into this:

Yep, we drove due south from our frigid spring weather only to hit... frigid spring weather!

Ah, well.

This national park site is small enough that when we pulled up, almost two hours after its posted opening time, the gate was shut. I looked on the website, and it was listed as open; I called the park's phone number, and before being directed to endless phone trees, none of which led me to an actual human, it again listed the park as open. 

I found the main voicemail and left a message that read something like, "Hey, it's almost 11 am and we're outside the gates, which are shut, if anyone wants to come down and let us in..." The gate was at the very front of the drive, and I couldn't figure out how far away the visitor center might be--100 yards? Two miles?--but I decided to get out of the car and wander that way, anyway. Even if it was a mile, Matt or I could hike that and get someone to come back and let the rest of us in, I figured.

So I walked over to the gate, intending to climb over it, but I noticed that it wasn't actually locked--the padlock was holding it closed, but the padlock was open. See? There WERE people there! I figured that if the park was open, and the padlock was open, maybe I'd just open the gate, myself, and help myself inside. All would be well, and we wouldn't have to bother anybody.

Of COURSE it's as I'm in the process of opening the gate, looking guilty as hell, that a golf cart trundles up the drive towards me. I lost my head and scooted back to the car, and Matt got out to talk to the ranger, who didn't really seem to care either way about any of it.

I didn't mention any of this to the rangers in the visitor's center, although I kind of wondered if they were curious as to why they had received absolutely zero visitors in the first two hours of being open. Fifteen minutes after we arrived, the place was packed!

But first, we had some time to ourselves to explore:

Lincoln logs, because of course!

This display kind of bugged me. I couldn't stop imagining Thomas' parents, who'd carved that stone by hand and placed it as his memorial, not knowing that someday someone would remove it from their child's grave and put it away from him in a museum. I can't help but think that I wouldn't want that, if it were me.

I also felt kind of "eh" about this memorial:

It has an authentic log cabin inside--not Lincoln's, but a real log cabin--

--and it's very close to the spring where the Lincoln family drew water. You can see the kids there to the left of the photo below; they're next to the path that you take down to the spring:

Instead of a giant memorial on the land that the Lincoln family lived on, I'd rather see something more authentic. I mean, did they even do any rescue archaeology on that site before they built the memorial? It's just not a great preservation, in my opinion.

After a brief snowball fight--

--we went on a hike around the land:

It was a gorgeous day for a hike in the snowy woods, which, out of site of the memorial, looked old and magical and mostly untouched.

The hike ended in the Sinking Spring, former water source for the Lincoln family and our first example of the karst caves that we'd spend our late afternoon and most of the day tomorrow delving into: 

It's a short drive from the birthplace to the farm where the Lincoln family lived while Abraham was between two and eight years old:

Here is where they farmed:

The cabin on the site is actually the cabin of Lincoln's childhood bestie, who once saved him from drowning in the creek that lies just beyond that tree line on the right of the below image:

I noticed that in both of these sites, the information about Thomas Lincoln was fairly neutral. You'd see him as a fine family man, whose many moves were more bad luck than bad planning. I've read the first volume of Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life, however, and in that one Thomas Lincoln does NOT come out smelling so sweet. Thomas used Abraham like a hired hand, and when he set out to seek a second wife, after Abraham's mother had died, he abandoned his children for six months, during which time they almost starved to death. 

I took it as my responsibility, then, to explain to the children that Thomas Lincoln was not so great, and Matt took it as his responsibility to pelt the children with snowballs:

And with that, we left the Land of Lincoln and drove off to do some spelunking!

Want to know more about Lincoln? Here's the time that we went to see the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. I include a LOT more Thomas Lincoln dish in this post. Here's the time that we went to the Lincoln Memorial.

And here are some other Lincoln-related resources that we've enjoyed in our various studies:

• Abraham Lincoln: A Life
• Who Was Abraham Lincoln?
• Abraham Lincoln for Kids
• Abraham Lincoln and the Heart of America
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
• Abe Lincoln at Last!
• Lincoln
• Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen

Yes, You SHOULD Take Your Kids to a Bourbon Distillery!

We've visited northern Kentucky several times (Louisville!!! The Kentucky Horse Park!!!), but otherwise, it's been just a drive-through state for us when headed for sites more southern.

On this Spring Break trip, however, we visited Kentucky for real! I had planned to spend plenty of time at the Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park (it has a Junior Ranger program!) and Mammoth Cave (it also has a Junior Ranger program!), but I got distracted from both of those goals on the first day of our trip, when as soon as we hit the state line we started seeing billboards for bourbon distilleries.

Huh. I've never been to a bourbon distillery. Could kids go there? I Googled it and yes, kids can go, too.

So off we went to see some bourbon distilleries!

We opted for the free, self-guided tour of the Jim Beam American Stillhouse, so we didn't learn much about the process of making bourbon here, but we did get a look at the buildings involved:

Now we know what a bourbon aging warehouse looks like! We drove past a LOT of these on the back roads of Kentucky:

Oops, Jim Beam! That's not how the apostrophe works!

The kids, as you can see, were quite ready to get back to the car at the end of our hike--

--so I was a little concerned that we were heading to Maker's Mark next, where we DID plan on taking their hour-long guided tour, but fortunately the beauty of the location--

--and the fact that our Kitty Whisperer found herself a friend--

--made sure that everything worked out well. Also, it just so happened that the computers were down at Maker's Mark that day, and so instead of telling people that there were no tours available after we'd driven all that way, they told us that all tours were free!!! And it wasn't even a cheap-o, free version of the tour--it was the full hour, bourbon-tasting and all.

I'd worried that the kids would be bored spending an hour learning how to make something that they couldn't even drink, but actually, they were fascinated, happily following along at the tour guide's heels, listening intently, and asking her questions. And on this guided tour, we DID learn how the process works!

Here's the cornmeal:

And here it is actively fermenting with yeast!

We were invited to dip a finger into the open vat of fermenting cornmeal mash and taste it. Afterwards, I asked the tour guide if it was sanitary for us to do that because of the alcohol already in the mash, but she replied that it was fine to do because the bourbon was going to be distilled so many times that no contaminants would be able to pass through to the final product... Oh, dear. I was ACTUALLY asking if the alcohol was why it was sanitary NOW for every tour group who passed by to all dip their filthy fingers together into an open vat of fermenting soup and then LICK THOSE FINGERS, but it appears that my answer was that it was not sanitary, ugh.

Oh, well. We managed to escape without any subsequent bouts of gastro-intestinal distress, so maybe there was enough alcohol in there, after all:

The campus is lovely, all the buildings and trees black with whiskey fungus and whiskey bottle cut-outs on the red shutters framing every window:

After seeing how the bourbon is made, we saw where it is put into barrels, and where it is aged:

It's flavored by having planks of different woods put in with it, and you can customize your bourbon this way, experimenting with different combinations of wood (you can also buy the wood to take home and smoke your food with!).

And when you're done with that, you'll want to taste it all!

And look, the kids had their own bourbon tasting selection, as well!

They actually weren't supposed to touch that, and they didn't drink any, but as the tour guide led us through the tasting, instructing us to smell this and that and telling us what we were smelling, I looked over and noticed that the kids were busily sniffing each glass, too. It was quite an educational field trip!

I don't think that I have a very discerning palate. I could definitely taste the difference between the moonshine, say and the Maker's Mark 46, but I couldn't really tell the difference between any of the aged bourbons:

I did my best to sample them all, nevertheless. One must be thorough!

You'll never guess what surprise we discovered after this:

Chihuly!

Apparently, Maker's Mark commissioned some Chihuly installations. We know his work well, remember, from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

This part of Kentucky is so lovely, and you know what's just a short drive away?

The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site, that's what!