Day 8 - Last Day
June 9, 1995
Indianapolis, IN We had an unusual night, compared to the last six. In Gatlinburg, the only wildlife that would even come NEAR people around the campsite were the Mallard ducks that came around every day to bathe in Trout Creek, behind our campsite. They would occasionally wander up to the bikes, or take a handout of bread from someone by the creek, but they pretty much left the campsite alone. Apparently, this has made us a little lax in protecting our food supply -- we left it on the picnic table, which was sheilded from inclement weather by the awning. We did not alter that procedure here at the Mammoth Cave campground.
The first nocturnal visitor drew my attentionfairly early in the evening -- a rustling sound near the table prompted me to dig out the flashlight, and see what type of critter might be rummaging around. It turned out that a very bold raccoon had climbed onto our table, located the loaf of bread from last night's dinner, and was in the process of spiriting it away. It seemed only mildly curious that I had spotted it -- certainly, it didn't seem concerened. It just went about its business, and drug the bread off into the woods, presumably to share with its varmint friends.
Since the bread was the only food that was left exposed on the table, and I really didn't feel like putting my shoes on and cleaning up whatever mess may have been made, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Apparently, the little critter was not quite full yet, as we were woken by the crash of our styrofoam cooler falling from the picnic table. Quite a spectacular effort was, unfortuanately for the little bugger, in vain, as the only contents were the remains of the bag of ice we had used to re-cool the remains of the Samuel Adam's six-pack we had packed in from Tennessee (priorities dictated what food would be worthy of transportation and what would be disposed of -- the chosen few items included marshmallows, beer, and graham crackers, while the eggs, bacon, and OJ failed to make the cut).
Again, since there appeared to be no actual loss of food going on, and since I was exhausted, I let the little heathens have their fun. I was just about to nod off again, when I heard another noise -- this one much closer... in fact, it appeared to be coming from inside the tent! Sure enough, I looked toward the door, and the boots we had placed on a plastic bag at the entrance were moving! Something was under the tent, rooting around for who-knows-what. By now, I was getting pretty tired of this, so I just picked up a boot and konked the thing at about where I presumed its head was. This seemed to settle him down a bit, and within a minute, all was still again... although there seemed to be a rather sizeable mound in the floor where we had not remembered one being the night before.
The rest of the night was more or less calm, and we woke at about 6:30 and got up to survey the damage. The lump under the tent, and our midnight visitor, were both attributed to a mole. The mole track snaked through the campsite, made an abrupt turn where the little bugger had smacked into one of our large nylon tent stakes, and looped its way under the tent. The cooler was laying on its side, leaking water all over the place. A squirrel (apparently an accomplice) was carrying marshmallows away one at a time from the open bag, laying on the ground about 30 feet from the table. An empty graham cracker box showed us that our visitor had returned, and the bread wrapper (empty) was retrieved from the woods nearby. We cleaned up the carnage, and headed for the public showers. Luckilly, we were about 15 minutes early, and got in the front of the long line that soon formed for the 3 shower stalls. Once cleaned up, we headed for the visitor's center to purchase our tour tickets.
We were happy to find that the center was open at 7:30, as the signs had indicated hours of 8:00 to 6:00. There are several monitors set up showing the status of each tour, with departure time and whether or not they were sold out yet. It was almost exactly like the monitors showing flight status in major airports. We were a little confused, in that a couple of the tours we had chosen from the brochure did not appear on the screen. Upon inquiring as to why, we were told that the brochure we had recieved was over three years out of date, and most of the tours had changed. We obtained a current list, and found some similar tours that met our schedule and interests, and purchased tickets for a 2-hour hike beginning at 8:00, and a 1-hour 45-minute hike at 12:30. Since the 8:00 tour, through the "historic" entrance, was about to depart, we set out for that area.
Although the weather in the area was a balmy 75 degrees already, and the humidity must have been over 70%, we knew that the caves maintain within 6 degrees of 64 farenheit year-round. With this in mind, we were both prepared with sweatshirts, along with a camera and flashlight. The historic entrance, which is the largest natural entrance, was discovered (or re-discovered) in the late 1700's, and had been used during the War of 1812 to mine saltpeter for gunpowder. There are still several ruins in the cave of the mining operation, which essentially mined nitrate- laden dirt, and drew the sodium nitrate out in water baths. The water was then boiled to reveal the crystals of sodium nitrate, which was then used in gunpowder manufacture.
The tour went on through about 2 miles of the cave system, including some enourmous caverns and "domes", or vertical shafts, extending over 100 feet in height. Near the end, we climbed a 100-foot tower in one such dome to reach the entrance. One interesting "artifact" was the so- called "historic graffiti" -- The caves were privately owned until 1941, and have been publicly shown since 1821. We saw some names written on the ceiling of the cave -- written with a candle's flame -- that were dated as early as 1836. Apparently, writings before 1967 are termed "historic grafitti"; those made today are termed "federal offenses".
After our first tour, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we ate an early lunch in the coffee room, and then rode down to the Green River, where a tour boat takes hourly jaunts down the river. The "Miss Green Fiver II', a false-paddlewheel tourboat, took us on a tour of about 12 miles of the Green River as it passes through the park. The river is up right now, about 14 feet, so the river isn't exactly ""green" -- it's a little more "brown" at the moment. We saw some of the wildlife in the area, including turtles and deer, on the banks. Also, there were a few fishermen who were trying their luck on the swollen waters -- interestingly, no permit is needed to fish within the park's boundries.
The boat docked at about 12:00, giving us time to ride back to the Visitor's Center where a bus waited to take us to the Frozen Niagira tour. After a 5-minute ride to the opposite end of the park, we entered through a man-made staircase, descending to a passage about 30 feet below the surface. From there, we climbed down a stainless-steel stairway that wound its way through several natural passages -- This stairway, constructed in the 1980's at a cost of about $3,000 per step, replaced a wooden one that had been built in 1921.
After reaching the bottom, it was a short walk to the area known as Frozen Niagria. This, interestingly, is the only area in over 350 miles of explored caves in the system, where there are any of the familiar stalactites and stalagmites found in most caves. The formations, which grow at the rate of one cubic inch of material every 300 years, have formed a huge "curtain", that resembles a frozen waterfall. Because of the rarity, they are very touchy about preventing any damage to the forms -- we were kept under very watchful eyes by the rangers at this point in the tour.
After exiting the caves, we took the bus back to our bikes, and went back to camp to pack up. After shooing away the squirrels from the picnic table (there was nothing left -- they shouldn't have bothered), we reloaded the bikes, and got on the road for home at about 3:30. Since Mammoth Cave and Indianapolis both lie on I-65, we had a very easy 200-mile trip to the house, which we accomplished before dark with only 2 stops. We were both tired, and very glad to be home.
We greatly enjoyed our vacation, and I have enjoyed documenting it. If the sum total of time of everyone reading it exceeds the time I took to write it, I will consider it a success. I want to thank Brent Soper, our resident Grand Exalted Poobah of the Internet, for creating the home pages -- I have heard that it has been read by several acquaintences around the country. Very likely, Todd and I will find someplace to travel to with the bikes next year. If we do, look for the story on www.cbsinet.com, in the "What's New" area.
Todd and I can be reached at my Compserve address (74044,3457), or via Internet at [email protected]. This report is sent via a Canon Innova Book 10C laptop, with a Motorola Power PCMCIA Modem plugged into my MicroTAC Elite. This report was sent upon returning to Indianapolis.
The End
Indianapolis, IN We had an unusual night, compared to the last six. In Gatlinburg, the only wildlife that would even come NEAR people around the campsite were the Mallard ducks that came around every day to bathe in Trout Creek, behind our campsite. They would occasionally wander up to the bikes, or take a handout of bread from someone by the creek, but they pretty much left the campsite alone. Apparently, this has made us a little lax in protecting our food supply -- we left it on the picnic table, which was sheilded from inclement weather by the awning. We did not alter that procedure here at the Mammoth Cave campground.
The first nocturnal visitor drew my attentionfairly early in the evening -- a rustling sound near the table prompted me to dig out the flashlight, and see what type of critter might be rummaging around. It turned out that a very bold raccoon had climbed onto our table, located the loaf of bread from last night's dinner, and was in the process of spiriting it away. It seemed only mildly curious that I had spotted it -- certainly, it didn't seem concerened. It just went about its business, and drug the bread off into the woods, presumably to share with its varmint friends.
Since the bread was the only food that was left exposed on the table, and I really didn't feel like putting my shoes on and cleaning up whatever mess may have been made, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Apparently, the little critter was not quite full yet, as we were woken by the crash of our styrofoam cooler falling from the picnic table. Quite a spectacular effort was, unfortuanately for the little bugger, in vain, as the only contents were the remains of the bag of ice we had used to re-cool the remains of the Samuel Adam's six-pack we had packed in from Tennessee (priorities dictated what food would be worthy of transportation and what would be disposed of -- the chosen few items included marshmallows, beer, and graham crackers, while the eggs, bacon, and OJ failed to make the cut).
Again, since there appeared to be no actual loss of food going on, and since I was exhausted, I let the little heathens have their fun. I was just about to nod off again, when I heard another noise -- this one much closer... in fact, it appeared to be coming from inside the tent! Sure enough, I looked toward the door, and the boots we had placed on a plastic bag at the entrance were moving! Something was under the tent, rooting around for who-knows-what. By now, I was getting pretty tired of this, so I just picked up a boot and konked the thing at about where I presumed its head was. This seemed to settle him down a bit, and within a minute, all was still again... although there seemed to be a rather sizeable mound in the floor where we had not remembered one being the night before.
The rest of the night was more or less calm, and we woke at about 6:30 and got up to survey the damage. The lump under the tent, and our midnight visitor, were both attributed to a mole. The mole track snaked through the campsite, made an abrupt turn where the little bugger had smacked into one of our large nylon tent stakes, and looped its way under the tent. The cooler was laying on its side, leaking water all over the place. A squirrel (apparently an accomplice) was carrying marshmallows away one at a time from the open bag, laying on the ground about 30 feet from the table. An empty graham cracker box showed us that our visitor had returned, and the bread wrapper (empty) was retrieved from the woods nearby. We cleaned up the carnage, and headed for the public showers. Luckilly, we were about 15 minutes early, and got in the front of the long line that soon formed for the 3 shower stalls. Once cleaned up, we headed for the visitor's center to purchase our tour tickets.
We were happy to find that the center was open at 7:30, as the signs had indicated hours of 8:00 to 6:00. There are several monitors set up showing the status of each tour, with departure time and whether or not they were sold out yet. It was almost exactly like the monitors showing flight status in major airports. We were a little confused, in that a couple of the tours we had chosen from the brochure did not appear on the screen. Upon inquiring as to why, we were told that the brochure we had recieved was over three years out of date, and most of the tours had changed. We obtained a current list, and found some similar tours that met our schedule and interests, and purchased tickets for a 2-hour hike beginning at 8:00, and a 1-hour 45-minute hike at 12:30. Since the 8:00 tour, through the "historic" entrance, was about to depart, we set out for that area.
Although the weather in the area was a balmy 75 degrees already, and the humidity must have been over 70%, we knew that the caves maintain within 6 degrees of 64 farenheit year-round. With this in mind, we were both prepared with sweatshirts, along with a camera and flashlight. The historic entrance, which is the largest natural entrance, was discovered (or re-discovered) in the late 1700's, and had been used during the War of 1812 to mine saltpeter for gunpowder. There are still several ruins in the cave of the mining operation, which essentially mined nitrate- laden dirt, and drew the sodium nitrate out in water baths. The water was then boiled to reveal the crystals of sodium nitrate, which was then used in gunpowder manufacture.
The tour went on through about 2 miles of the cave system, including some enourmous caverns and "domes", or vertical shafts, extending over 100 feet in height. Near the end, we climbed a 100-foot tower in one such dome to reach the entrance. One interesting "artifact" was the so- called "historic graffiti" -- The caves were privately owned until 1941, and have been publicly shown since 1821. We saw some names written on the ceiling of the cave -- written with a candle's flame -- that were dated as early as 1836. Apparently, writings before 1967 are termed "historic grafitti"; those made today are termed "federal offenses".
After our first tour, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we ate an early lunch in the coffee room, and then rode down to the Green River, where a tour boat takes hourly jaunts down the river. The "Miss Green Fiver II', a false-paddlewheel tourboat, took us on a tour of about 12 miles of the Green River as it passes through the park. The river is up right now, about 14 feet, so the river isn't exactly ""green" -- it's a little more "brown" at the moment. We saw some of the wildlife in the area, including turtles and deer, on the banks. Also, there were a few fishermen who were trying their luck on the swollen waters -- interestingly, no permit is needed to fish within the park's boundries.
The boat docked at about 12:00, giving us time to ride back to the Visitor's Center where a bus waited to take us to the Frozen Niagira tour. After a 5-minute ride to the opposite end of the park, we entered through a man-made staircase, descending to a passage about 30 feet below the surface. From there, we climbed down a stainless-steel stairway that wound its way through several natural passages -- This stairway, constructed in the 1980's at a cost of about $3,000 per step, replaced a wooden one that had been built in 1921.
After reaching the bottom, it was a short walk to the area known as Frozen Niagria. This, interestingly, is the only area in over 350 miles of explored caves in the system, where there are any of the familiar stalactites and stalagmites found in most caves. The formations, which grow at the rate of one cubic inch of material every 300 years, have formed a huge "curtain", that resembles a frozen waterfall. Because of the rarity, they are very touchy about preventing any damage to the forms -- we were kept under very watchful eyes by the rangers at this point in the tour.
After exiting the caves, we took the bus back to our bikes, and went back to camp to pack up. After shooing away the squirrels from the picnic table (there was nothing left -- they shouldn't have bothered), we reloaded the bikes, and got on the road for home at about 3:30. Since Mammoth Cave and Indianapolis both lie on I-65, we had a very easy 200-mile trip to the house, which we accomplished before dark with only 2 stops. We were both tired, and very glad to be home.
We greatly enjoyed our vacation, and I have enjoyed documenting it. If the sum total of time of everyone reading it exceeds the time I took to write it, I will consider it a success. I want to thank Brent Soper, our resident Grand Exalted Poobah of the Internet, for creating the home pages -- I have heard that it has been read by several acquaintences around the country. Very likely, Todd and I will find someplace to travel to with the bikes next year. If we do, look for the story on www.cbsinet.com, in the "What's New" area.
Todd and I can be reached at my Compserve address (74044,3457), or via Internet at [email protected]. This report is sent via a Canon Innova Book 10C laptop, with a Motorola Power PCMCIA Modem plugged into my MicroTAC Elite. This report was sent upon returning to Indianapolis.
The End