Vacation, day 3

Day 3 of our trip found us in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
We were so excited to visit the Mammoth Caves....Ellie had been to a cave this year with school and according to her, this was nothing like the Wisconsin caves!

What do you think of the shirts?!
Remember how Andy and the big girls went to Cherry On Top to tie dye shirts for our trip? Well, what started as a sarcastic comment about matching turned out to be one of the best things. I tried to match everyone or at least color coordinate most of the days...and it was so nice, being able to easily locate our 4 kiddos.

The upper left photo was taken by a very sweet elderly couple that was stopped outside of Mammoth Cave State Park when we pulled up. We briefly chatted with them and I told the kids that the woman reminded me EXACTLY of my Grandma Gorden. She even looked a little like Grandma!

Here we are waiting for our cave tour. We didn't want to risk missing our tour because of road construction or traffic....so we arrived 1 hour early. The children have never been early like that before; we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves! The girls had fun taking pictures and video of Colin in his singing element. You can view him HERE.

The grounds of Mammoth Cave State Park are AMAZING. That is what you get when you can claim nearly 2 MILLION visitors a year to your park. Many of the tours were already filled up when Andy checked on tickets--it is THAT popular. We took a 2 hour tour, the historic tour...which really was amazing.

Here are the photos of our tour, which are really hard to show on a blog. The upper left photo shows our tour guide--as you can see, she was not a young lady, but boy, could she hike and she sure knew her cave information. We learned a lot from her.

It is truly amazing to think that the amazingly HUGE caves were all formed by WATER swirling around. The cave was very clean; it was cool--about 57 degrees (compared to the 90-something outside!) and dark and damp...but clean and the tour was very comfortable...and included 450 steps!

Of course, we learned a lot too. Some of the things we learned were:

• The entrance to the mammoth cave started over 4000 years ago.

• There was no sand blasting in the caves...all formations were from the water.

• The first stop we made was called the "rotunda" and I would compare it to the Milwaukee Public Museum. It was GIANT.

• Most of the old miners were slaves and they used to do salt mining. They would use the sodium chloride to make gun powder.

• Last year, when Nashville flooded, the cave we were in also flooded! Earlier this year, there was another risk of flooding and again; the cave was filling with water.

• We went 300 feet UNDERGROUND!

• We saw historic graffiti on the walls and ceiling--this used to be a money maker--people would pay to use candles to write images and sign their names. The candle soot was used for writing!

• The Mammoth Caves are 390+ miles of cave and there are really no stalagmite or stalactites because there is no water freely flowing to create them. If these existed, the caves would actually cave in over time.

After the tour, we ate lunch...in our van, of all places! It was SO hot outside and after being in 57 degree conditions for 2 hours, we just couldn't even think of sitting on a picnic table to eat!

We then went "shopping". The kids were so excited to check out the rock shop. Colin was excited to pick out rocks in the Wiggles colors, but he was also obsessed with this old fashioned kiddy riding toy, a blue car. He loved the car, but HATED the ride. Check it out HERE.

Another fun part of our trip was the anticipation of "what to spend my money on?". All the kids had some "mad money" from their grandparents and they have been saving up their cash to spend on junk...I mean trinkets. ROCKS were a very popular purchase.

This is the woman who was working at this rock shop....and I was so glad Andy captured her in a photo. I talked with her a bit while the kids were drooling over the rocks and she was so very sweet. I felt bad for her though...I asked her when their busy season starts (we were the ONLY people in the store, at 2pm!). Her answer was "Well, honey....this IS the busy season." It was obvious that the economy had hit this little rock shop pretty hard. Something about the look of being back in time and chatting with her...it really touched me. She was also so kind and patient with the kids as they used their own wallets and money to buy their treasures. A good learning experience in more ways than one.

Hooked onto the same parking lot as the above rock shop was this "mystery house":

The funny thing about this is that the children might tell you this was their favorite part of the trip! It was very heavy on the optical illusions and we did share a TON of laughs throughout the tour. Apparently the tours have been going on since the 60's, at least. I'm not sure they've ever updated anything either...

Here you will see images of the slanted floor room. Ellie is sitting on a chair without it tipping...yet only 2 of the chair's legs are on the "ground". And those of us who look like we are slanted--WE are standing straight. It is an illusion with the floor!

And this is another part of the slanted floor room. We got so many laughs out of this. Depending on where the children stood, they were either teeny-tiny or giant-like compared to their siblings!

Finally, after all the fun at Mammoth Cave State Park, we had to stop at the local Dairy Queen for a treat before heading back to our cottage. Look closely to determine which child seemed to enjoy his/her treat the most. Let me just tell you that a certain child had a red mustache for HOURS, despite scrubbing the face!

Day 3 was very tiring, yet very fun and interesting. Andy did a super job of finding us the perfect cave tour and the children (especially Ava and Colin!) did AMAZING during the tour!