This post is part of a travel series of our road trip in the midwest where we traveled to four states: Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana. We visited one state park, two national parks, and a historic farm.. To start at the beginning, go HERE. The rest of the posts in consecutive order are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE!
On our second day in Mammoth Cave National Park we had another cave tour scheduled for 10:00 a.m.: The Historic Tour. This is the most famous and popular tour of the park, and if you can only do one cave tour, this should be the one!
Being the early risers that we are, we had a lot of time to kill before our tour, so we headed across the street from our hotel to an Amish store to get some Amish bakery. We were greeted by this beautiful peacock who must have escaped from the nearby zoo (there's a small zoo behind the Amish bakery). Isn't he beautiful?
Dinosaurs bone discoveries are plentiful in this area, so of course there are lots of tourism attractions around dinosaurs. We stopped to get this photo opportunity for the grandkids.
Hiking in Mammoth Cave National Park
Although there are several outdoor hiking trails in Mammoth Cave National Park, nothing really sparked our interest. We just did so many amazing trails in Hocking Hills and New River Gorge National Park, that any trails in Mammoth Cave National Park paled in comparison. However, there was one trail that we kept passing as we drove to the Visitor Center each day that grabbed my attention, and that was "Sloan's Crossing Pond Walk". Since we still had a lot of time to kill, we stopped to check it out.
This is a beautiful board walk trail around a large pond through the woods. It was so peaceful and the most amazing thing about this trail was the sounds of the wildlife. The frogs were so loud it was almost deafening. Apparently this is a great trail to take in the evening because of the nature sounds, though I can't even imagine it being louder than it already was.
Sloan's Crossing Pond Trail is only 1/2 mile round trip, stroller/wheel chair assessable and is rated as "easy".
Historic Tour
Finally the time came for our tour. All tours meet in one of two shelters where you are introduced to your ranger tour guide and given some instructions. We were very disappointed to discover a large noisy school group was joining our tour. We paid so much for our tour and felt a school group should have their own separate tour. I did write that on my review of the tour.
The Historic Tour has the most participates, usually around 100. All those people you see above were in our tour. Many complaints about the tours are that the tour groups are too big and it's hard to hear the instructor. Some tour groups, like the Frozen Niagara tour are kept small, under 30 people. I wrote about that tour in last week's post. If you want a smaller tour group, you might want to pick a different tour than the Historic Tour.
The Historic Tour does not require a bus ride to the entrance. You just walk down a lovely path to the cave entrance. We saw deer in the woods as we walked.
The Historic Cave entrance is worth seeing alone for there is a beautiful waterfall. You can actually see the entrance without paying for a tour.
As you get closer to the cave you notice an ice cold breeze. It feels like the temperature just dropped twenty degrees. The sign below explains why that happens.
We really wanted to hear the ranger/tour guide, so we navigated ourselves so we'd be right up front. But it wasn't easy with so many people. I felt often like we were jockeys in a horse race trying to get in first position. I could tell certain people were trying to walk faster to get in front of me. We had to walk so fast to keep up with the ranger. At times I felt I was running. Once again, I wished I could just explore the cave on my own and walk at my own pace. I felt I missed a lot walking so fast.
The Historic Tour is 2 miles long and takes about 2 hours to complete. It has 540 stairs and goes through some tight tunnels that is why it is rated as "moderate".
The tour guide does stop a few times and lets people catch up. Hikers stand or sit on a benches while the guide lectures about the cave. Here our guide pointed out some of the graffiti in the cave. This writing was from 1839.
I was so afraid I was going to drop my cell phone down the Bottomless Pit trying to take a picture!
Here is one of the tight spaces we had to get through, and if you're tall like me you have to duck a bit.
The guide focuses on early history and prehistory of the cave and tourists visit many of the historic areas that made Mammoth Cave famous.
When our tour was over, we had to walk back to our car in pouring rain. We got so wet we had to change our clothes. We laughed cause there was a waterfall on the path that wasn't there before our tour began.
Bowling Green Kentucky
With a fresh change of clothes, we then headed to the nearby town of Bowling Green to get some lunch and do a little sight seeing. We wanted to eat at this famous greek restaurant which is located inside an old greek orthodox church (pictured above), but it was closed. I was so disappointed.
I also spotted the old church pictured below. I'm a sucker for old churches. I find them so beautiful and interesting.
Even though we couldn't eat at the Greek restaurant, we were very happy to discover Bowling Green had a Mellow Mushroom. We LOVE Mellow Mushroom but we don't have one in our town, so every time we travel if we see one, we stop and eat! My favorite dishes at the Mellow Mushroom is their Greek salad, and their "Great White" pizza. It's to die for!
After we were done eating we just walked around their cute downtown.
All the downtown stores were situated around a park square, called "Fountain Square". It was so pretty and it reminded me a lot of Savannah.
The gardens, fountains, and statues in the square were all so beautiful!
Bowling Green ended up being quite a nice surprise and we were glad we made the trip. But now it was time to head back to our hotel and get a good night sleep, for the next morning we were back on the road for the last leg of our journey home. Till next week...
Have A Great Day! Amy
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