'Tucky Travels

Got back from Mammoth Cave Kentucky last week... a fun enough adventure, but not exactly life-changing experience either. On a scale of 0 to 10, I'd give it a 6.5, maybe 7. No catastrophes, no ecstasies either.

Got kind of a late start on Sunday, leaving around 11-ish, and for the 6-7 hour drive, that unfortunately meant setting up camp (and then cooking dinner) at the park in the dark. This would become a theme for the week: being too optimistic about time, and thus perfecting my skills at pitching a tent and cooking/cleaning without the benefit of sunshine. And while camping is certainly a cheaper way to travel than hotel, I wasn't exactly happy to pay $17 per night in the main campground. $17? For what? A plot of dirt? Sure, there's running water and toilets, but no showers (gotta pay $2 at the store for that). Whatever.

Monday was Cave Day, and I, surprisingly, got an early start. (whenever I'm sleeping somewhere new, I usually wake a dozen or so times in the night). And thus, began my second disappointment. The Wild Cave Tour is weekends only, and sells out months in advance. Crapola. Instead, I picked the Grand Avenue and Historic tours. And this is where I have henceforth solidified my new policy about trails, routes, tours, and vacations. If it is a "wilderness" area and it DOESN'T have safety warnings... it's probably pretty boring. Anything that has paved trails, is stroller-accessible, and has bathrooms nearby is likely to be jammed with slow-moving groups of retirees and children bouncing all over the place. I'm not hatin' on your sprogs, I just happen to be child-free, healthy, and adventurous. When I'm looking for grandeur of nature, I would rather it wasn't corrupted by constant yelling of 5-year-olds. It wasn't just me... the kind, gentle, mother-of-two who couldn't get her point across to the non-parenting parents of the uncontrollable child, even after resorting to shouting over her shoulder at least five times "Kid! I can't hear...will you SHUT UP!"... she wasn't enjoying the distraction, either. It is also, I found, very difficult to take casual photos in caves. Flashes wash things out, or fail to illuminate the nifty dark recesses. All I was left with was random shots of the backs of heads of my fellow tour-goers. If you want to see pretty photos, buy the postcards.

The Historic Tour was pretty interesting - about how the cave was used as a residence 4000 years ago and then more or less abandoned 2000 years ago by Native Americans, then re-discovered explored back in the 1800's by settlers, how it went from being a tourist destination to an industrial saltpeter operation, then becoming a tourist destination again, imagining exploring massive chambers by the light of a feeble oil lamp, etc. After 7 hours of tours, I realized that sunshine wasn't going to last forever, so I got the bike together and went on a quickie ride. Half hour out and back... then dinner and sleep.

Tuesday was Bike Day and Backpacking Day 1. The whole point of going to Kentucky, along with the 80-degree temps and one-day drive, is that it has a few hills (ok, more than SE Michigan). So in the morning I pack up my tent, organize food for 3 days of packing, organize bike stuff, and head off to the trailhead where I'll park my car, go for a long-ish ride, then come back and hike off in to the wilderness. The ride, she was a decent one. As I was rolling away from the car I thought "hmm, planning to be out for at least 4 hours... should I have put on sunscreen? Nahh... I'll be fine..." Well, I crisped a little bit, but the good news is that my teensy-bit of sunburn is turning into a very respectable start to my tan lines for the season. A decent ride was had. I was fortunate to find that the area around the park has rather smooth roads, with fairly light traffic - probably due to there being no heavy truck traffic and fairly mild winters. The shoulder ain't none too wide, but what with all the plants budding and whatnot, it was a pretty ride. Most all the car/truck traffic was easy to get along with - with the requisite one asshole shouting something out the window as he passes in his jacked-up Ford penis-substitute. (why is it that assholes on the road always seem to be driving Ford vehicles? GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, none seem to attract the Asshole Gene quite as much as Ford Trucks).

So nothing gonzo about the ride, just putting in base miles with some of them uphill, and after getting back, stowing the bike, and a brief snack/rest put on the pack and head off on the trail. While it was nice that backcountry permits at this park are free (compared to out West - where I'd imagine the backcountry fees help offset the occasional cost of having to rescue someone injured, lost, or stranded) the trails themselves aren't that interesting. Unfortunately, I neglected to register on the map that there are occasional dirt roads through the area, and after hiking 5 miles with a full pack, crossing a road is aggravating. "If you can drive to this spot, why am I hiking it?" This gets back to my new policy about accessibility - a.k.a. "If It's Easy, It Can't Possibly Be Interesting"

Anyway, I got to the first backcountry site, and lo and behold a spring flowing out of the side of a hill, right next to the campsite. The last time I went packing was in the desert. Where getting water was sketchy. This was luxury. All the water you could drink, and not having to worry about whether there will be water anywhere near the next campsite. Heck, I crossed stream after stream on the hike. So why was I carrying 4 liters? Habit, I guess. Better safe than sorry.

I got there in just enough time before sunset to gather some firewood, so after cooking dinner I had a cheery little fire, stared at the sky for a while, and went to bed. 4am rolled around and the first few pitter-pats of rain was joined by "oh, shit... my gear is outside", but after some quick barefoot half-clothed pack-grabbing, I was back in my tent with gear safe and dry, when the pouing rain lulled me right back to sleep. After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, off I go to the second site by the river, and though it was pretty, it seemed that the further you get from the trailhead, the more likely people are to leave garbage all over the place. I ended up packing out 2x more of other peoples garbage than I created myself. Aggravatin', lemme tell ya.

I really wanted to go for a swim. I hadn't showered in a couple days, plus it was hot and a little sticky, and I hadn't gotten all of the road grit from the ride off me. But the Green River is... opaque. And, it seems, I'm a pussy. Apparently, when I'm alone out in the wilderness, I have an attack of age and responsibility. As in - when the edge of the river has rough and sharp rocks on the bottom that I can't see, and then suddenly the bottom drops away, I get a case of the willies. Imagining spraining an ankle, or stabbing my foot on something when I'm miles away from anything other than a basic first aid kit kept me close to shore. I guess I need to find a Cross-Country Adventure Buddy for these trips... it's nice to find solitude, but it's also nice to share the load, tell stories, and have backup in case one does something stupid and injures ones self.

I had gotten to campsite #2 mid-afternoon, so I spent the whole afternoon lounging about. I made some tea, sat and watched the river, constantly fussed with the little ThermaRest chair I got last year (it's more comfortable than rocks, but never quite right), and read the last half of In A Sunburned Country which, while humorous, started to grate on me with the same funny story/revelation over and over again. Yes, Australia is full of poisionous critters that will be happy to kill you. Yes, Australia has a huge and desolate interior. Yes, modern Australians are on average an amazingly warm and generous bunch of folks. We heard it in the first 100 pages... get on with it. In contrast with those two product disappointments, I'm very happy with my new MSR Dragonfly. After borrowing Jake's Whisperlite last year, I realized I really need to get my own stove. A stove that can reliably burn white gas, kerosene, gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel? Works for me.

Heading out the next day on the way back to the trailhead and the drive home, I passed by the strangest little cemetary. Yes, it was old, but why do some of the headstones just look like just a plain rock with no engraving? And why are they all spaced so closely together? Turns out to be a children's cemetary. Very few of the headstones indicate a life longer than 4 years. Some even have dates of birth and death the same day or only a few days apart. And they're all in the mid-1920's. Just kind of odd at the time to stumble onto this. Was is an illness that swept the area in that time? There's a regular cemetery at the historic church near the trailhead - why are the children's bodies buried 2 miles away up in the hills? Ah, mystery.

And in the end, a non-climatic journey home. I decided not to stop in Fort Knox (can't take a tour anyway), Louisville (don't really care much for baseball bats), Cinncinati (I'll see it some other time), or anywhere else. So here I am. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.