Final day on the road.

We headed out fairly early in the morning, as we didn’t have any food, and had plans to stop not far from our VRBO at a breakfast buffet.

This village square house several attractions including an old steam locomotive and museum right next door to the home a Casey Jones. He was a train engineer who died in a famous train accident. The restaurant also displayed some stools in front of a counter from what used to be the local Woolworths department store. Woolworths across the United States became a place of peaceful protest against segregation.

Last day in camp

Since we were very tired from the long exhausting cave tours, hiking and exploring, we decided to just stay in camp on our last day and just rest. Bad weather was moving into the area the next morning, so we had to quickly pack up, load up, and get on the road. We proceeded to our VRBO for the last night of our vacation. There was some confusion, mostly on my part probably. We arrived at the VRBO, and we could see two houses and several smaller buildings. Usually, VRBO’s are locked and the owner sends you an unlock code to get in. We saw one house that looked to have another car behind it, and thought this must be someone else’s home, and we went to the other house. It was unlocked and we went in. It was really nice! It had a place where we could do laundry, a large kitchen / dining area, large living room with fireplace, three bedrooms, and two baths.

Turns out, this was not ours for the night. After we had had shower / bath, and dinner, I was settling into bed and looking on my phone to see what we had to do tomorrow before we could leave, and noticed it kept telling me our property was to the right after entering the gate. But that is the small house with the other car parked in the back. I messaged the contact for the property and asked if we were in the correct house or not. We were in the wrong house. We got dressed and went outside to look for where we belonged. We found a small building in the back of the property that was also unlocked and looked inside. It had bunkbeds, which didn’t look right according to the pictures I was sent when I first rented. I messaged again, and was finally directed to the building with the car. It also was unlocked, with no inside. The furnishings matched, and was assured this was the correct place. We went back and gathered our belongings, made the bed and cleaned up any mess we had made, trying to leave the first house as close to how we found it as possible. We slept the night in the correct place, in the solitude of the country, with no other people around for miles, and left the next morning.

Green River Ferry

This is the Green river Ferry. There is no cost. Now it’s my turn.

Final cave tour

This entrance to the cave used to be privately owned, but became part of the historic Mammoth Cave after discovering it was connected to the system and not an independent cave. This is Frozen Niagara. The first couple of photos show some ‘cave crickets’. The only other significant life you might find in the caves are bats, however, this is the first cave we have visited that has, ‘White-nose syndrome’, which upsets the hibernation cycle of the bats, which makes them wake in the winter, causing them to go outside the cave in the harsh winter climate and a large portion of the population has died from cold exposure. Anyone visiting caves where this disease has been detected should sanitize their feet and wash their hands and clothes to prevent spreading it to other caves. It is harmless to anyone or anything except bats.

Our third tour.

We entered the cave on our third tour through the main cave entrance and saw some of the same part of the cave as the previous tour, but turned left instead of right part way in. This was a very interesting tour, which provided us with more history of the cave, including the idea that it some people in the past thought staying in the cave might cure tuberculosis. In fact, some people died from the disease in the cave. We also went across a section thought to be a bottomless pit, which was not, and we passed through a section known as, ‘Fat Man’s Misery’. This section is so called because you must duck down to avoid hitting your head (just over a meter in height) and it is very narrow from hip level down as it snakes along a path that is about 30 meters long. You can read more about Mammoth Cave here. And this is a very interesting article about the Kentucky Cave Wars.

Since I am a fat man, I did get stuck one time going through ‘Fat Man’s Misery’, and my Destiny going ahead of me thought is was funny, but I dislodged myself, backed up, shifted my fat belly around by lifting it up, and managed to make it through. At the end of the tour, we had to go up 155 stairs to escape the cave. Since I wasn’t in the best physical condition and wasn’t used to so much activity at one time, I had to stop at each platform to rest and catch my breath. By the time I got to the last 27 steps, I wasn’t certain I would make it, but knew I was going back the way I came. It was only me and one of the tour guides. I asked him if he was still responsible for me until I left the cave and if he knew where the heart defibrillators were located. Needless to say, I made it out.

Mammoth Cave main entrance

The second tour was much more difficult than the first. There were many stairs, although I still really enjoyed the tour. One of the first things you come across in the tour is a monument to U.S. soldiers. I have had some students ask if there were any minerals mined in the cave. Yes, saltpetre, was mined for the War of 1812. There were some foreign tourist on this tour from Vietnam. During the tour, they kept touching the stalactites and columns, which you should never do because it takes hundreds of thousands of years for them to grow, and touching them can damage them or prevent them from growing anymore. I told them to not touch. They said they wanted to make sure they were real. I mentioned that they would not like tourist coming to their country and touching their national treasures to see if they were real.

Mammoth Cave train

Before the roads were paved, it was extremely difficult to get to Mammoth Cave except by horse. As the caves became more popular to the wealthy few who could afford to travel, they built a railroad to reach the cave. They no longer have a train, because it is easier to get to the cave by car for a much larger number of tourist.

Sand Cave trail

This is the only real hike we went on. It was a very short and easy hike to visit a very historical spot where a caver died. Read the story. They were able to eventually recover his body and bury him in the cemetery and Mammoth Cave church.

Mammoth Cave accessible tour

We took our first tour of the cave on Monday morning. It was the accessible tour, meaning we were able to take an elevator down and didn’t have to use stairs and it was mostly very level. This section of the cave had been used for tours for 150 years. At one point in the past, they would serve food and drinks to the tourist. The writing you see on the wall was partially from the cave tour guides and partially advertising by local businesses of the time. It is now illegal to write on the walls.

Mammoth Cave visitor’s center

Mammoth Cave church

We went for a drive to explore and after going down a narrow, uneven, hilly dirt road, we found this church with cemetery and later a picnic area with a canoe ramp leading to the Green River. We also discovered all these butterflies. They were busy eating other butterflies that had died. I had no idea they were cannibals.

Arriving at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

We arrived and set up camp. We did not set up our bathroom tent, because we were very near the camp bathrooms. After exploring the other campsites, I came to the conclusion that our site was the best because of it’s location, it had a pull through, it was the largest, and it was level.

End of day 1 to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

We stayed at VRBO after our first day of driving. It was in the country and the owners who lived near had some small horses that Destiny loved to meet.

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky vacation

We left about 8 a.m. and had reached Memphis before 1 p.m.

We stopped at Captain King’s Seafood buffet for lunch.

There were 11 motorcycle police having lunch there, so it must have been a good place to eat, and we knew we would be safe.

The food was delicious. We had a variety of foods, including this bowl of a selection of foods I choose and they cooked to my preference. See if you can identify the different ingredients.

As of this date, I am starting a new blog on Squarespace, and have transferred all previous post.

I hope you will enjoy the new format.

Mother's day

After my mother, both my daughters, and my older daughter's boyfriend's mom, and I went to church together, I took them to lunch.

My daughter's and I then presented my mother with her gift from us; five flower planters.

Pot luck

This is the dish I made for our most recent pot luck at church. I boiled and then shredded some chicken thighs, cooked some sausage, and combined that with some green beans, stewed tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, taco seasoning, green chili sauce, and topped it with some cornbread dressing.

Solar eclipse

Total solar eclipse in De Queen, Arkansas

I kept Destiny out of school on Monday to drive two hours west so we could be at the center of the total solar eclipse. Camden only experienced about 95% eclipse for just over a minute. We drove to De Queen, where the eclipse was 100% and more than four minutes.

I don't know what some people were expecting to happen, but clearly paranoia was part of it. The governor declared a state of emergency ahead of the eclipse in case so many visitors caused disruptions to traffic flow.

There was 500 to 1,000 people at the Herman Dierks Memorial Park, some from neighboring states. It was perfect weather with only slight cloud cover. The clouds were not a factor once the eclipse started.

We took a picnic lunch with us and had a great time.

I took all of these photos by holding my disposable eclipse glasses against the lens of my Samsung Galaxy S21+ without using any kind of stand or mount and using maximum zoom. I think they turned out pretty good.

This is a picture of the park showing how the light is dissipating.

We left shortly after the totality.

Easter 2024

https://www.youtube.com/live/GQNAUmWo7PA?si=FCvrmEW0jkqafniI

Easter dinner. Mashed potatoes, gravy, fried shrimp, fried chicken, green bean casserole, and rolls.

The Upper Room 4 up Lord's Supper

https://www.youtube.com/live/uW7NRdiFOQY?feature=shared