Day 18 (4/12/21): Mammoth Cave National Park

Today, I woke up at the cracker barrel. I woke up, got myself ready, made breakfast, and hit the road by 7am. Today I'm headed to Mammoth cave National Park! 

On the road I stopped in Evansville, Indiana which is a little town on the river. I went for a short walk just to stretch my legs and breakup the drive. Then, I continued on. Kentucky was a beautiful state! I had no idea. There were rolling hills, lush green grass, and colorful trees. 

As I was driving on this windy narrow hilly road through the back woods of Kentucky, it was quite the trip. All of a sudden as I'm going up a hill and around a corner, a pickup truck going towards me has a guy in the backseat behind the driver frantically waving a red flag out the window. So I (with like 5 cars behind me), slow down and start to pull over. My first thought was tractor? Animals? What on earth am I supposed to do? Does anyone else know what to do? What's everyone else doing? So i looked in my rear view, to see them doing the same. Well that's good, I thought, at least I'm doing what everyone else thinks to do too. Then, before I'm even to a full stop, a SEMI TRUCK WITH A MOBILE HOME ON IT COMES FLYING around the corner! There's absolutely no way he's getting past me I thought. I'm definitely going in this ditch. I couldn't pull over any more, but he somehow squeezed by me. I wish I could have seen his face too. I almost peed myself. I couldn't believe it. So I frantically got back to driving down the road. I pulled off to let everyone pass me. 

Then, not a few more miles, I come around a corner to a TRACTOR!! Thankfully he was in the other lane, but I was worried somebody might try to pass him. It was right on a narrow corner and hill of course. So I continued on and I kid you not, not even half mile later I go around another corner up the hill, and there's A TURKEY RUNNING ACROSS THE ROAD! I came probably two feet from having turkey for dinner that night. I came to a screeching halt and thankfully the guy behind me was paying attention. Finally, that was the last of my adventures for that morning and I made it to Mammoth Cave around 12:30. 

Also, I decided to try running the propane while driving because I'm still having fridge issues. I ran the propane all last night but the fridge is warm in the "danger zone". So I'm not sure why it's not holding its temperature it should have been fine running off the propane all night so I'm not sure what's going on now. Even though the ice bottles did still refreeze when I put them back in the freezer from last night maybe it's putting all of the cold air into there? I don't understand what's wrong. I have it on the maximum coldness, but it's still not cold. Anyways... 

Before my tour started at 2:30, I decided to eat lunch and go for a hike. There was a pretty hike along the river. 

Then, I went to tour Mammoth Cave! Unfortunately, due to COVID, they don't have all of their tour options open. So it's only a self guided tour that's normally their "extended historical tour". 

Going down into the cave was really cool. This is the third cave that I've been in (the others were Belize and Gibraltar). 

The cave is absolutely massive and the tour tells you all about the history. Thankfully, they did have rangers posted at each "interest point" so that you could ask questions. I stopped at each one as I followed along on my map. 

It's interesting to see the history of the cave. The first dated uses of it were 2,000-4,000 years ago! Also, there are 412 miles of caves!!! I only got to see two miles. I definitely want to go back when they're fully open to get a more submersive experience. 

After my tour, I decided to go into town to find a place to stay for the night. I wanted to get shore power to get my fridge cold again. I called around and found a cute little mom and pop RV/cabin place. I setup camp, hung out, got a shower in, and went to bed. The next day I was meeting a friend back at Mammoth Cave.