I was looking forward to it, and I thought it was going to be fun. When we got there however, I saw some of the pictures and the elevation, I started to get nervous. My dad had to pick the Grand Avenue tour, of course, the second longest. It goes 4 1/2 miles long and is 4 hours long in time.
I looked at him. "Could we please take a shorter tour for starters, please?" I asked weakly.
"It will be fun," was his only response to that.
So, we got on a bus and drove to a manmade entrance. I started to freak out as we walked to the small little passage. This is us about to walk in the miniature passageway:
Then we entered the little passage. We went down a pair of endless steps. I was very close to hyperventilating.
On and on it went. It was 180 steps before we reached the bottom. We made it to the bottom, and one of the worst parts was the slam of the ranger shutting the door up above. It made the whole cave echo. Many people asked what the loud slam was, because no one knew at the time. Thankfully, we had an old park ranger that had gone on this tour many times, and he was the type of person you can't help trusting. Here is us in the cave:
All of that light is artificial light. I got much better after I got over how deep we were underground, and I actually started to enjoy myself.
After a while we made it to a lunch area. 250 feet underground, can you believe it? They had an elevator above that brought the food down, as well as the equipment.
I was a bit uncomfortable with eating underground, so I just got a Starburst pack and only ate half of it. I mostly just looked at the ceilings and walls. Notice the writing on the ceiling and the walls? In the 1800s, before the Civil War, people paid slave guides to go down and guide them through the cave. They would pay them to mark their names on the walls, and sometimes the date!! I saw one that was from 1851!!!! That was probably my favorite part of the tour.
At the end of the tour, we got to see loads of stalactites and stalagmites. It was so cool!!!
We came out at the surface with no stairs. I wish we had come in that way and came out the other way!!!
We came out of the national park. I didn't mention this earlier, but the people outside the park in Cave City were running some SUPER cheesy ads. There were ten-foot tall concrete chickens and little stone statues. I thought it was a horrible eyesore and I wish we could run those people out of there. We ate at Tumbleweed's Grill afterward in Glasglow. It was good.
Well, that is pretty much my trip to Mammoth Cave yesterday. I hope I didn't bore you to death!
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