Day 3 – Mammoth Cave National Park

Wigwam Village Motel

We made the short drive from where we were staying in Horse Cave to Mammoth Cave, passing through Cave City with its myriad of tourist attractions. The first photo attached is one of Wigwam Village, which has a special significance to me as I stayed there with my family probably sometime in the mid to late 1950s, in the motel’s hay day. This was pre-Interstate highways so the motel was then located on the main road, Highway 31W. I only have vague recollections of staying there but it was nice to see that it is still in business after all these years.

Frozen Niagara

When we arrived at Mammoth Cave, we found that almost all the tours were sold out for the day, but fortunately we had bought our tour on-line days before where there was a complete selection available. We took the “Domes and Dripstones” tour, which lasts for 2 hours and includes the Frozen Niagara tour. The view of Frozen Niagara is probably the highlight of the Mammoth Cave adventure for those not taking the more strenuous tours. By strenuous I mean a 4-hour tour with a lot of climbing and specifically for people in great physical shape. As it was, our tour was moderately strenuous and starts with a descent down 250 steps into the depths of the cave. That is no easy feat and requires the avoidance of “wishing rocks.” Wishing rocks, as our tour guide explained, are those rocks that you wished you had ducked under after you hit your head.

Stalactites and Stalagmites

The tour winds through some pretty tights spaces, over seemingly bottomless pits and occasionally through wide open passageways. We stopped twice in rooms with enough seating to handle our group of about 120 where the ranger explained the history of the cave and the various formations that we would be seeing. In addition to stalactites and stalagmites, there was drapery, columns (connected stalagmites and stalactites), bacon and popcorn and we did see most of them in the Frozen Niagara section. In the second room, the ranger turned off all the lights and there is no place darker or more quiet on earth.

Drapery

The final part of the tour is about a 100 step drop to the bottom of Frozen Niagara where you can really see the wonders of the cave that were developed over thousands of years. Simply amazing. And the best part of the tour was that we didn’t have to climb back up the 250 stair steps to get out. There was an exit conveniently located nearby and we were out of the cave.

There were no bats on the tour, at least none that we saw. The bat population was recently hit by something called the “White Nose” syndrome which had killed between 80 and 90% of their bats.

Day 2 - Kentucky and Lincoln

Ohio River with three states in view

Today we drove from Charleston, WV, due west across Kentucky to Horse Cave, KY, stopping at a couple of Abraham Lincoln historic sites along the way.

Our first stop was in Huntington, WV, to take a look at the Ohio River where three states meet. In fact, we kind of stumbled onto the exact spot where you can see three states in the photo. The foreground is West Virginia, on the other side of the river to the right is Ohio, and on the left, just beyond the tree and barely in view, is where the Big Sandy River feeds into the Ohio. The land on the left side of the river in the distance is Kentucky. The word Ohio means “Beautiful River” but it is any thing but as you can tell from the picture. At this point, it is pretty much a super highway of non-stop, ugly barges.

Lincoln White House China (first term)

We next stopped in Lexington to tour the Mary Todd Lincoln house, where she grew up before moving to Illinois to live with her sister. The house is extremely well furnished with historical pieces and well worth a stop if you get to Lexington. You can see her personal place settings, including a piece of her White House china, one of her mourning suits, and the playbill from Ford’s Theater the night of the assassination. The Lincolns stayed there during a 3-week visit after they were married so one of the cool things you can do is go up a set of stairs, using the same handrail that Lincoln himself used.

While in Lexington, we drove through the University of Kentucky campus as that is one of the things that we like to do. It is a very pretty campus, very well kept and with a lot of open space.

Lincoln's Log Cabin Birthplace (or is it?)

Our final stop of the day was at the Lincoln Birthplace National Historic site where we watched a film on Lincoln’s life in Kentucky, which was actually a very short period of time. He only lived in Kentucky until age 7, when his family moved to Indiana and finally on to Illinois. On the site, there is a well preserved cabin which was thought for many years to be the actual cabin where Lincoln was born. Carbon dating in 2005, however proved that the log cabin was only from about 1840 and Lincoln was born in 1809, so it isn’t actually the real one after all. Sometimes science is just a hindrance to the enjoyment of life.

From there we drove to Horse Cave, which is close to the entrance to Mammoth Cave National Park.

Day 1 - Home to Charleston, WV

This blog will cover our 16-day trip from our home in the Philadelphia area to the delta region of Mississippi to visit the Hot Tamale Festival in Greenville, MS. Along the way we plan to stop at Mammoth Cave National Park, visit some Abraham Lincoln sites, and also tour northern Mississippi a little.

WVU Coliseum

Day 1 was mostly driving. About 8 hours in fact. We got to see some really beautiful scenery in the panhandle region of Maryland along I-68 from Hagerstown, MD and on the way to Morgantown, WV. Although this is early October, the trees were changing in the mountains and gave a colorful backdrop to the valleys along the way. West Virginia, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as scenic as it was a constant array of mountains, with very few flat spots.

Napier, WV

We stopped briefly in Morgantown to drive around the University of West Virginia campus. That campus really isn’t very pretty and it is a lot of up and down walking, so it must be difficult getting to and from classes. We saw the football stadium and stopped to look into the basketball arena on Jerry West Way. One thing that I especially liked was parking in Coach Huggins personal reserved parking spot. Never did like that guy.

From Morgantown we drove to Charleston where we spent the night. We did make one quick stop in Napier, WV, (population 10, counting dogs and chickens) for a photo op in our namesake town. The GPS did try to play games with us here and try to send us off on a dirt road, but when we got to where we had to ford a two foot deep stream, we turned around and took a more main road and let the GPS catch up with us.

West Virginia State Capitol Building

Charleston, on the other hand, is a cute town situated on the Kanawha River.  The state capitol overlooks the river with University of Charleston on the other side. One of the best locations for a capitol building that we have seen, and we have seen a lot. One interesting thing about the capitol grounds is that they have two very different statues. One is General Stonewall Jackson (local boy) and the other is of Abraham Lincoln, who was president when the state was created.