The road trip from New York to Tennessee - Day7 @ Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

bye The morning start with a heavy downpour, we were lucky as our hotel is just few miles away from the Mammoth Cave. The rain look like it's gonna be a there the whole day,  it's a good thing that we are exploring caves today.

the visitor center. it's was early morning it's already busy in here.

there is also a small museum in the visitor center

Entrance Fee is FREE and there are plenty of trails within the national park, however to enter the cave one must join the tours and there are many types from easy to difficult with different price range

more info of the tour visit ----- https://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm

we did 2 tours....the Frozen Niagara tour and The Historic tour

initially we wanted to do the Wild Cave tour which is the longest tour which take up to 6 hours with a 5 miles distance but it's already sold out.....early booking for the popular tour are a must!!

our 1st tour the Frozen Niagara. Price $13/adult, $9/kid and $6.50/special access. We were take to the entrance which was a few miles away from the visitor center in buses

the entrance

gopro is really not built for dark places

going down a narrow metal ladder....feels like Lara croft now 

water in the cave

the steps was wet and slippery and the temperature inside the cave is low best to bring along a warm jacket.....even in the summer time

after several minutes of going deep into the cave...we come to a large room where we were told the history of this cave and how it was rediscovered in 1798

the Mammoth Cave national park is the most extensive cave system on earth. After 4000 years of intermittent exploration, the full extent of this water formed labyrinth remain unknown

with over  365miles of surveyed passageways, Mammoth cave is over double as long as any know cave. Geologists think there could be 600miles yet undiscovered passageways and we only walked a tiny part of it

this bubble pocket passageways was really cool

going deeper

prehistoric people explored 10 or more miles of Mammoth Cave 4000 years ago. Archaeological evidence shows that these early cavers collected crystals and other salts in the cave

i don't see any crystals

more passageway

the highlight of this tour is the Frozen Niagara formation

these flowstones take up many many years to form even an inch takes a century 

i took many photos with my gopro unfortunately it's badly lit down

the Frozen Niagara is 130ft below surface

there are about 130 forms of life can be found in Mammoth Cave and most are quite small. So far i only seen some algae and this big ass spiders which was  hanging above the cave.....and it was really low....yucks...i bet Ron Weasley will freak out

and that was the end of our tour for Frozen Niagara which took about 1.5hours

our 2nd tour the Historic tour

cost: $ 14/adult, $9/kid , $ 5 special access

for this tour the entrance it's just a walking distance from the visitor center however access without a guide is not possible

it's really dark inside but at least this entrance is wide and dry

and it's really massive inside 

as we venture further ,,,it gets narrow and narrower 

those who is claustrophobic best not to take this your. As it's a large group,it takes time to squeeze in this narrow area

and not to mention people who like to take photos holding up the line.....hehe

then we come to a place which is The Tower...beautiful place......unfortunately it's too dark for me to take any decent photo

some graffiti 

our tour lasted 2 hours 

it was still pouring even after our tour

overall Mammoth cave is really something extraordinary, i'm really glad we did the extra 5 hours drive to Kentucky for our roadtrip.

and this conclude our 8 days road trip.... we had to drive 1.5 days just to get back to NY from Kentucky....i'm glad that we drove almost half way from Mammoth cave to Ohio after our tour.

There is another FREE entrance fee national park in Ohio....Cuyahoga Valley National Park(check out my post  Cuyahoga Valley National Park. worth visiting on the way...but we have been there before when we did our Chicago roadtrip from NY

till our next adventure

~ bye bye ~

The road trip from New York to Tennessee - Day6 @ Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Our last day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and we only have half day before we headed to Kentucky. Somehow we still manage to squeeze in just one more trail to hike, Grotto Falls which is also a loop road and have many points of interest to visit

view along the way to Grotto Falls trailhead

parking is really limited here too but we were early

the trail was alittle muddy from the rain last night

and there are lots of salamander near the falls....they are small but not difficult to spot if you look really hard

the Grotto Falls

Honey Adaric Mushroom, can be found from August through October, and we were there in late August early September. i was told they glow with yellow, green or bluish light. Would be cool to see them glow at night

some primitive shelter along the loop road

we managed to spot a black bear family here......i though i caught it in my gopro....but it was too far away( boy i was pissed should have filmed it with my smartphone at least i can zoom in)..... but i saw it with my own eyes and it's was an amazing experience.....although I've seen black bear before in Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming.

Seeing the black bear family (mama bear with 3 of  her cubs enjoying their breakfast) was a very special experience. Great Smoky Mountains certainly make an impression on me.

Best thing it's a FREE National Park!!

as we were leaving it started to rain heavily....so lucky!

we then headed to Kentucky

by the time we reached our hotel in town just outside of Mammoth Cave National Park. 

Guess what we had for dinner??? Kentucky Fried Chicken.....couldn't resist as it's the birth place. But unfortunately we were disappointed.....it's not good. Oh well we gave it a shot i do prefer Popeye better

next day we are visiting Mammoth Cave

~ to be continue ~