Memorial Day Weekend

My friend from Key West came and visited us here in Cincinnati!  But because Cincinnati is a tourist trap (who doesn't want to visit Cincinnati?!), we decided to take her down to Mammoth Cave.

(If you don't like Mammoth Cave, or caves in general, you can pretty much stop reading here.  Just FYI.)

I love Mammoth Cave.  I love the massive passageways, the (very few) formations, the constant 54 degree climate.  I love the history of it, the mystery of it, and the Floyd Collins story.  I decided that my new life goal (ha!  I haven't had a life goal since I set the "I want to marry Rob Thacker" one) is to do every tour that they offer.  I did tours as a kid, but those don't count because, though I did the Snowball Tour, I only have a vague, fleeting memory (perhaps fabricated) of the Snowball Dining Room. 

Note to self and everyone else who wants to learn from our mistakes:  Never, ever go on a holiday weekend.  It was packed!  The only tours available at the ticket office were the Historic Tour and the New Entrance tour.  FOR THE NEXT DAY.  (Another note.  You can buy tickets in advance, but when I checked on-line, they only had the tours showing for the Winter schedule.  Memorial Day Weekend marked the start of the Summer schedule.  Figures, right?  Granted, I'm sure I could have found the tour schedule if I'd looked hard enough.  I guess I'm just lazy.)  So we checked in to our campsite and then decided to go check out Diamond Caverns.  I'd always wanted to check it out, and here was our golden opportunity!  (Check, check, check.)

Verdict:  You can skip it.  I mean, I'm glad we did it, but I won't pay to do it again.  In fact, I'm not sure I'd do it again if someone ELSE paid.  Sorry, Diamond Caverns.

Here's a GREAT picture of the cave:

One of the sad things about caves is that they don't photograph particularly well.  But here's the tourism spin:  It's so much better in person.  Go see it for yourself!

Also, my Key West Friend owns a professional-grade camera.  So, while I love my $400 camera (thank you again, Collin), we left it dormant for much of the weekend.  Here's Key West Friend letting Elijah take a picture with her camera:

Elijah was SO EXCITED that they were wearing matching colors.  The kids all adored Key West Friend.

Oh!  The Diamond Caverns Gift Shop had these great hats!  Perfect for balding men.  I made Rob try one on. 
Before:

After:

Obviously he was thrilled!  We bought 5, in differing hair colors.

And that's pretty much where our pictures stopped.  If you want to see more, you can check out Key West Friend's blog post about it.  And then if you want to see EVEN MORE, you can check out her smugmug (linked at the bottom of her blog post).

On Sunday we packed up camp and then did the 2 available Mammoth Cave tours.  It turns out that the 2 available tours were the 2 that I would have picked anyway.  If you're going for the first time, they're the ones I recommend. 

The Historic Tour shows you the huge, huge rooms and passageways, plus gives you some of the history of the cave.  It's fascinating history, and breathtaking scenery.  (Does a cave count as scenery?) It's about 2 hours long, 2 miles total, and it's a pretty easy walk.

The New Entrance Tour is about 2 hours long and covers 3/4 of a mile, a bunch of which is stairs, stairs, stairs.  The tour shows you a different entrance to the cave.  A newer entrance (go figure), and the guide gives some of the history of that entrance, which means you learn about the Kentucky Cave Wars.  Who doesn't want to learn about that?!  I think it's fascinating stuff.  But the real draw of this tour, and the whole reason to take it, is you get to see the best cave formation that Mammoth has to offer:  Frozen Niagara.

I just stole that picture from someone's website.  But, again, it's impossible to tell how amazing this formation really is.  So go see it for yourself!

Mammoth has 12 miles open to the public, and you can even do a river boat ride INTO THE CAVE.  Cool, right?  So, you should go there.  Heck, I'll go with you!

Last note on Mammoth:  They have a 6-hour Wild Cave tour.  I've never done it, but I'm going to THIS SUMMER!  I was waiting for my brother to go with me, because they have size requirements, and Rob is too big according to the size limits they have listed on-line.  But while we were at Mammoth this time, Rob asked about it.  They pulled out their measurement string, and Rob is small enough to go!  Ha, ha!  So we're going to pay $60 a person, leave our kids with a babysitter for 2 days, and take this tour!  I'm SO EXCITED!  One step closer to meeting that new life goal.

And the rest of the weekend was spent just kinda chillin'.  Mammoth was fun, but tiring, and we were all zonked by Sunday night.  We did go to our ward's annual Memorial Day Picnic, and that was fun.  I represented the female race, again, by playing in the annual soccer game (there was 1 other woman out there representing.  Thanks, Jocelyn!).  Though this time I got crap for wearing cleats.  Seriously?  If you only wore flip-flops, that's not my problem!  :)  Everyone was safe, so it all turned out well. 

We closed out the day roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores around a fire in our backyard.  LOVE summer.

Oh!  To end our super fun Kentucky caving/camping adventure:  We came home with 7 ticks on us, collectively.  3 on Elijah, 1 attached.  1 on Miciah, non-attached.  1 on me, super attached.  And 1 on Key West Friend.  I was glad we could give her an authentic Midwest camping experience.

Thanks for coming, Key West Friend!

(Picture taken by Miciah.  Love the penguin sticker on her forehead?  Elijah put it there.)