2015 Road Trip: Part 6 (Mammoth Caves)

Five States, Mammoth Caves, 800 miles
Day 10
4.23.15

Little did I know that today would be an extremely long day.  But filled with truly spectacular things, as well as some mediocre ones.  I began the day in Hoosier National Forest just south of Bloomington, IN, after my second night at the horse camp.  The Hickory Ridge fire tower was a few miles from the campsite down the gravel road, so I was looking forward to catching a sunrise from the top, being so close.  It took awhile to actually find it since signage is not great 'round these parts.  I pulled up to it, and it was the largest tower I've seen so far on the trip.  It was built in 1936, and was one of 8 towers in the Hoosier NF.  Now this is the only one remaining.  And for the first time ever, the cabin was open to the public!  Finally somewhere not so sketchy to stand to watch the sunrise.  It was very cold, compared to the 70s I had seen over the past few days, so I had to break out the hat and mittens for proper camera operation.

I was able to watch the sky go from a dark glow, to a bright pink and orange, to the sun finally breaking across the trees, and then fully emerging.  I'll just leave one picture so you can get a sense of it.

Sunrise from Hickory Ridge Fore Tower

As I was waiting for the sun to come up, two students from IU made their way up to view the sunrise as well.  It was nice to share the experience with them.  (If you two are following the blog, this is the post for you!)

I began the drive down to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, which I have heard many great things about, but never had the chance to see.  I love this about my trip - I am able to actually go see things, instead of eternally wishing to go see them.  On my way south, I found my first dose of endlessly straight roads.  Ohio was flat and straight, but there were stoplights every so often.  But here, you can go for a long time without seeing an intersection.  I was initially dreading these parts of the trip, but they are freeing in a way.  The vastness of these roads and landscapes allows you to feel more open.

This openness ended abruptly with Louisville traffic.  The highway around this area is very interesting though, because it winds through the hills that make up this area of the "Appalachians" if you want to stretch that definition enough.

Welcome to Kentucky!

Soon, I was exiting the highway to go to Mammoth Caves!  I also realized that I had crossed over into Central Time, and because part of Kentucky is in Eastern, and part in Central, they label all the times for everything with the time zone.  This was kind of them for foreigners like myself.  I browsed the different tours you can do there to explore bits of the cave system, and decided to go on two, which allowed me to see around 3 miles total of underground awesomeness.  One thing to realize about this cave system, is there is nearly 400 miles of human-passable cave network that is all interconnected.  Meaning you could go underground, and go through 400 miles without seeing sunlight.

One drawback to the cave tours here is that they don't allow flash photography.  This is disappointing because everything comes out a bit shaky, but it also means that to actually get a good view of it, you have to go, and nothing compares to actually seeing it and being there.  I took my camera on a tour called Domes and Dripstones, led by a super cool dude named Bobby.  I liked this tour a lot because it was pretty narrow, and it was focused more on the geology of the cave.  Aside from the entrance and exits, the caves here are completely dry, which means that stalactites and stalagmites won't form.  The caves are dry because of a sandstone "roof" over the top, which shields the water from seeping through, and dissolving the limestone to create the stalactites.  Some caves don't have the sandstone layer on top, so those will form more interesting formations.  Instead, we got to see narrow channels, a few deep pits, and dripstone, which I'll explain in a moment.

The way these caves form is from above, where the land is riddled with tens of thousands of sinkholes.  These allow rainwater to enter below the sandstone.  From here, with lots of time, the water can dissolve pathways through the limestone, and these passageways eventually lead to the Green River.  This river has carved its way down through layers of earth over time, meaning that the water from the underground caves can drain into it as it gets lower.  We entered the cave in a sinkhole, then exited along a slope, where water would have at one point drained into the Green River.

Toward the end of this tour, we saw the "Frozen Niagara Falls".  It looks like a frozen waterfall, but it's all made from limestone which has solidified as water seeped out and deposited the limestone on the already existing seepage.  Bobby told us that it took roughly 100 years to create one inch of limestone thickness here.  This is what we call the dripstone.  We were allowed to have a look from the bottom of the "falls" which gave this sweet picture below:

Dripstone at Frozen Niagara Falls

 The way everything is lit in the cave accentuates all the features we saw, especially ones like this.  This is a dormant feature, so it no longer seeps, but the fins that hang down from the dripstone must have been over six feet long.

Here we see a little bit of seepage, where mini stalactites and stalagmites have formed.  (I remember the difference between these because stalaCtite are on the Ceiling, and stalGmites are on the Ground.)

I went on the Historic Tour, which was much larger, with passageways exceeding 30 feet in diameter.  Of course, I forgot my camera in the car for this one.  This allowed me to experience it more personally though, since it's easy to "miss the cave" has Bobby said, if you take too many pictures.

We saw a huge ancient saltpeter mine in a part of the cave called the Rotunda.  It looked like something out of Harry Potter to be honest - this huge dome area that was nearly a half an acre in size.  From there, we followed the pathways through Fat Man's Misery, where you have to duck, and the walkway is tightly bordered by rock.  This led to the the infamous Mammoth Dome, which now has a huge staircase going up from the bottom.  This dome is 192 feet tall, and there are channels into which you can peer down from the stairs.

The first tour was much nicer since we only had a small group of less than 20 or so, but I am glad to have done both tours, because I got to see both the narrow tight caves as well as the larger ones.  The large caves felt like a movie theater with the way that they've lit the pathway with amber lighting.  One amazing thing they did on the tours is to have us gather round, then turn off all the lights.  You can see NOTHING, not even after your eyes adjust.  There is no difference with your eyes open on closed.  You can hear nothing (assuming we were quite like we were supposed to be).  It was a surreal experience.  Bobby then turned on a dim LED and the cave looks very different this way compared to the standard lighting.  It makes me want to try spelunking, because this is what it looks like - just helmet lights.

After emerging into the outside world again, everyone's eyes hurting I'm sure, I had decided I wanted to drive into either Missouri or Arkansas by the end of the day.  I hadn't found a place I could camp for free yet, so I went to Central City, KY for some internet mooching, and a food resupply.  I was an adequate distance from Lake between the Lakes, in western KY, so I headed there where I would cook some dinner, and then continue after that until I became too tired.  Here is a glimpse of the setting sun (or its glow at least) on Kentucky Lake.  It was a great place to have some dinner.  Five stars.

Sunset glow over Kentucky Lake

From this point on, you might as well stop reading, because all that happened is I drove for another 7 hours from Kentucky, western Tennessee, through the south tip of Missouri, and then across most of Arkansas to this strange point on Lake Ouachita.  I stopped to fill up with gas, acquire some caffeine, and scrape bugs off my windshield.

After 814 miles, I finally arrived at this camp called Big Firs CG, where I didn't really see any firs.  Nor was there a flat place to set up a tent, so I took a place that was as flat as I could find.  It was 3:30am, and by the time I set up the tent, I had seen 24 hours, if you account for the time zone change.  Something about that is exciting on its own.

Below is my progress map for Day 10.  With 814 miles added to the total, I've driven 2464 miles so far.  (The map isn't perfectly accurate, I'm realizing.  I'm calculating mileage from the odometer.) Westward I go!

2015 Road Trip: Part 5 (OH-IN)

Ohio to Indiana

Day 8

4.21.15

Next stop on my trip was to visit my fellow violist, Teal, at IU in Bloomington.  From this point onward, every mile I drove west would be the furthest I've ever been.  So far, my record was Oberlin.  No longer! This is exciting because it's fun to expand your territory.  Along the way, I found many road closures.  This was frustrating not necessarily because of taking a longer route, but because I got pretty damn tired of "when possible, make a legal U-turn" from the GPS.

On a lighter note, I found some very fun roads to drive along that weren't all flat.  There were some cows too.  As you drive south into Ohio, it gets a bit more hilly, but there is still plenty of farmland to go around.

Endangering myself to get this picture.

Since I have been on the lookout for fire towers, I found that there were a few left standing in Ohio.  I guess they remove most of them, leaving very few choices for people like me who like to check them all out.  This one was in Mohican State Park, which was somewhere near Ashland and Mansfield.

The experience could have been better.  It was cold and windy unless you were standing directly in the sun with a nice greenhouse around you to shield the wind.  It made for a good lunch spot, even though the cabin was once again locked.  Grrr.  There was some amusing graffiti right under the cabin that said "MALLARD DUCKS! lets live".  Every once in awhile you get some funny stuff.

I found another covered bridge on my way out of the park to find some highways.  This one was drivable, so that was a perk.  I was somewhat wary of it for some reason.  I mean why would it collapse?  But it still crosses my mind.

This was a road along the top of a dam that was much to high for the current water level.  Dams are cool though, so I snapped a picture.

Driving along the highway on this day was terrifying because it was very windy, and that always blows you around in the lane (or out of it if you're on careful!)  Due to some changing circumstances, I wasn't able to see Teal that evening, so instead I went directly to this place called Blackwell Horse Camp, just south of Bloomington in the Hoosier National Forest. It worked out very well that I came directly here, because I got to see it in the light before setting up camp.  This is the most western state in Eastern Time, so I was amazing at how late I was able to see.  I think it was still light around 9pm.  This never happens in Maine this time of year.

I pulled off to the side, and got this corner of the field all to myself.

This was the first test of my cooking setup.  On a whim, I grabbed a camping stove I saw in our attic.  It is a beautiful piece of technology. The smell of boiling water will never fail to soothe me.

First try at night photography.  (Sorry for repost from facebook.)
This one is full res if you want to use it as your desktop wallpaper!

I closed out the evening by pulling out my accordion.  There were other campers around, but we were very spread out, so I could barely hear them, so I assume they could barely hear me.  Though who doesn't like accordion music?  Yes, I'm biased.  My fingers got cold after playing through the tunes I know, but I love just jamming on my big mechanical lung in the open air.

This is the progress map for this leg of the journey, adding 407 miles to the journey, and making the total 1650 miles.  (This included my day trip mileage around the Oberlin area.)

Yellowwood National Forest
Day 9
4.22.15

I awoke after a peaceful night, and toasted some bagels on one of those cool stovetop toasters like I used while working at Baxter SP.  That's camping luxury right there.  Also having a car right there with everything you could possibly need.  But I won't mention that.

I have a tendency to gravitate to placed called Monroe.  Bloomington is in Monroe County, IN.  Below is a picture of Monroe Lake, which is also in Monroe County.  (I think they planned that.)  It was overflowing the banks, since there were many trees that were underwater.

Underwater picnic bench, Monroe Lake, IN

To occupy myself for the morning until Teal was free to be bothered by me, I went out to explore the Yellowwood National Forest, which is a short drive east on Rt. 46, and then on a few back roads.  I chose this gravel road, which was reminiscent of the park tote road through Baxter. This road was considerably wider, and the forest more open.  There were lots of pinkish flowers in this area.  If I cared about plants, I'd be telling you what they are, but I was content just seeing pretty pink flowers.

I found a trailhead for "Trail Y".  I had found a vague map of the area, but it didn't really seem to match anything I was seeing.  Luckily it was a wide path that was said to be used for firewood harvesting, so it was easy to follow.  After around 2 miles, I made it down to Yellowwood Lake.  I was presented with this beautiful meadow with a hump in the middle.  Perfect picnic spot.

Yellowwood Lake and a meadow

After entering the meadow, I saw a herd of geese and a number of small birds that seemed to be ground nesters.  Maybe bobolinks or the like? They looked more black though, so I'm not sure.

After my excursion to the lake and back, I met up with Teal to go to a smoothie place called Soma.  Made with real fruits!  Later, we had some dinner, played some night frisbee on the IU campus, and as you can see by the picture, we were completely civilized during the entire time.

Aren't we flattering.

I came back to the same spot in the Hoosier NF for another night.  It was cold and clear, and according to the weather forecast, no rain, so I didn't put the fly on the tent, and got a cool view of the stars.  The drawback was the coldness, but the sleeping bag did its job on everything except for my nose.