Mammoth Cave

Last weekend I accompanied Kate on a trip to Mammoth Cave with her Geology of the National Parks class. We nearly had to cancel because I was afflicted with a mysterious disease Monday night that lasted two days. I could not imagine where I would have picked up a food-borne illness, but it’s hard to argue with the full void. The good thing about that sort of problem, though, is that once it’s over, it’s over. By Thursday, I was ready to commit to sitting in a car for 8 hours.

Kate and I picked up the rental vans Thursday after work. Kate had a 12-passenger Ford Transit; I had a 6-passenger Chevy Traverse.

The Chevy Traverse and the Ford Transit

We were supposed to leave at 8:00. By the time the last student arrived and we found luggage space for 17 persons and their sleeping bags, it was 8:30. We drove and drove and drove, stopping for lunch in Indianapolis. We passed into Eastern Time when we entered Indiana. In spite of driving straight south through Kentucky, I noticed a sign in an apparently random location that said, “Entering Central Time.” Go figure.

Kate, being a resourceful field trip organizer, had found lodging for us at Hamilton Valley Research Center. It wasn’t deluxe, but we didn’t have to sleep on the ground. Our first task upon arriving was to get the gate unlocked and find the secretly hidden lock box that held key to the lodge. Kate got out to work on the gate while the rest of us waited in the vans. When she did not have success in a few minutes, I got out to help. I checked that she had the right combination. I unrolled the numbers and rolled them back again. Kate read me the alleged combination to the lock box, and that opened the lock. We opened the gate.

Kate read the directions out loud. We were on the lookout for an upside down bucket. We walked all the way up to the decrepit mobile home that served as the site manager’s residence. No bucket. Kate looked back the way we’d come and spotted the bucket not too far from the gate. The lock on the lock box was not locked, and we were glad.

Just inside the door to the lodge were a men’s and women’s restroom with showers. It also had a kitchen, fireplace with couches, a bench all along the windows, and a porch with mostly old and cracked plastic patio furniture. The main part of the room was a big empty space. It seemed peculiar at the time that there were no tables or chairs at which to dine.

The fireplace

The view from the deck as students explored our backyard

We found the closet next to the fireplace that was supposed to have the keys to all the bunk rooms. After checking a few boxes lying on shelves, I noticed a gray box attached to a wall that said, “KEYS” in faded Magic Marker. I had thought it was an electrical box on the first pass. I grabbed the keys and commenced unlocking the bunk rooms.

The bunk house

Bunk room--4 beds, shelves, heat and A/C!

I was temporarily dismayed that the bunk rooms were not directly connected to the rest rooms. It had been a long time since I had to put on my shoes for my middle of the night bathroom trips, and now that I’m old, I’m lucky if I only get up twice. Clearly, I would have to continue my carefully controlled program of dehydration, which I had started for the 8-hour drive, throughout the weekend.

While the students were settling in, we tried to figure out how to make the giant industrial gas stove work. There did not seem to be any gas going to the burners. Eventually, I noticed directions in tiny type taped to the wall next to the stove. Step 1: Turn on gas at tank outside kitchen door. Well. I found the tank and turned it on. Kate lit the pilots to all four burners. I was concerned that we would asphyxiate ourselves from the oven pilot if we didn’t get that lit. Furthermore, we wanted to use the stovetop grill for the hotdogs and brats for supper, and the directions suggested that the oven had to be lit for the grill to work. Sadly, the only instructions for the oven were “Follow the instructions on the front panel.” I thought maybe the bottom panel came out somehow, but I couldn’t get it to move. Meanwhile, two of the girls volunteered to see if the gas grill outside had any fuel in the tank. Kate verified that they were experienced grillers and handed over the lighter.

The girls returned in short order to report that the grill was lit and warming up. The grate was “disgusting,” but we did not have anything to clean it off. We decided to just let the stuff burn off. We gave them the meat and sent them back outside. I turned off the gas to the stove.

Somehow or another we got dinner together. The pasta salad was more popular than the potato salad. Kate and I ate on the porch to get away from the loud music (courtesy of a boom box one of the student brought along) and proportionately loud conversation inside. Following clean up, Kate put out marshmallows, Hershey bars, and Graham crackers and let people figure out how to make their own S’mores. “But let’s not build a fire in the fireplace, okay?” Kate said.

Some went back out to the grill (“No dropping marshmallows on the gas jets!” I shouted after them) while others made them in the microwave. Kate took a shower. I went to bed.

And, for the most part, did not sleep. The walls between the rooms were thin. The three girls next door were loud. At 10:30, I knocked and asked if we could please have some quiet time. “Of course,” Kaylee said, “we were just going to bed.” Which they did.

I have to admit that as much as I dreaded the walk outside to the bathroom, it was lovely. The moon was one night from full, the sky was beautiful, and the whippoorwills were going crazy. I couldn’t figure out what the call was. Kate suggested a whippoorwill, and that made sense. What had thrown me off is that when you say the name it’s WHIPpoorwill, and when the bird says it, it’s really fast and has the emphasis on the last part—whippoorWILLwhippoorWILLwhipoorWILL. And after a day of constant chatter from 15 students, there was a complete and blissful absence of human sounds. Ahhh. The best part of the day, really.

I was up at 5:30 the next morning, unable to sleep any longer. It was a quiet, beautiful morning with the sun just coming up. I heard a barred owl in the distance. Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? My assumption that I was the first one up was wrong. Someone was already in the shower. I thought I might as well beat the rush and took a shower also.

We breakfasted on granola bars, bagels and cream cheese, and instant oatmeal. One of the students tried to make coffee in the restaurant-grade maker but neglected to let it warm up before pouring water in the top. The tepid water ran out into the pot immediately, barely changing color. The student then poured the coffee back through a couple of times. Judging by the reviews of those who tried to drink it, the result was not good. I made tea in my L. L. Bean sippy up with the built in tea strainer using leaves that I packed along.

We left for the park at 8:30. “CENTRAL TIME” was painted prominently over the entryway. 

CENTRAL TIME above the door

We had a half an hour before our first tour to look around the visitor center. As is my habit, I used the gift shop as a reference library, verifying that the whippoorwill was a nocturnal bird. It’s a funny looking little guy with the large eyes typical of night-active animals. We went through the interpretive area, learning about the saltpeter mining and the geological history of Mammoth Cave. Kate took a video of one of their videos that showed very clearly how the water level drops as the cave develops. “That’s really hard to explain to students,” she told me.

I got the feeling that a lot of people miss their tours. There were clocks everywhere.

One of the numerous clocks on the educational displays

Kate and I were disappointed in our tours. Mammoth Cave is a victim of its own success. I estimated that there were 150 people on the tour with us. I understand that they need to accommodate vast numbers of tourists, but for $14 per person, it would be nice to be able to spend time with the tour guide. Mostly we spent our two hours shuffling along like cattle going through the chute.

The worst part was that, although there were only three rules, those were too much for some people. The rules were nothing to eat or drink except water, no flash photography, and don’t touch the rocks unless you are about to fall over. The morning “Historic” tour was better behaved than the afternoon “Domes and Dripstones” tour. Even so, I could feel Kate’s blood pressure rise when the woman in front of us pulled out a bottle of formula to calm her fussy infant. Personally, I think there should also be a minimum age limit. What is a baby going to get out of a cave tour?

The only place on the tour that had enough light for my weenie camera (I left my good camera at home on this trip) was where tourists of the past had written their names on the ceiling with soot from their lard lamps and candles. As the guide explained, before 1941, this was called graffiti; after 1941 (when the cave became a national park) it was called federal offence. He also told us that when settlers moved inland from the East Coast, they brought their whale oil lamps with them, but they found there was a terrible shortage of whales. This is when the lamps became lard lamps.

Historic graffiti with dates from the 1800's

150 people coming out of the cave at the end of the tour

In between tours we had a picnic lunch on the lawn next to where we had the vans parked. After lunch, Kate took us on a hike down to the River Styx. She explained that the river was where the water came out of the cave. I took a liberal arts moment to ask the students what the original River Styx was. “A band?” one of the guys guessed.

A sycamore in the middle of the River Styx. The water level is not always this high

“Older than that.” Blank looks all around. I explained that the ancient Greeks believed that when one died, one had to cross the River Styx to get into Hades. If I’d known that we were visiting the River Styx, I would have brushed up on my mythology. I told the students that people were buried with gold coins on their eyes so they would have fare for the ferry crossing. I knew I was getting confused when I associated this process with a jackal-headed god, which I realized was Egyptian. I thought the god was Horus, but that’s the falcon-headed god. The jackal-headed god is Anubis, who weighed the hearts of the dead to decide which souls could pass into the underworld. No rivers involved. Oh well. Also, Wikipedia says that one gold coin was placed in the mouth. Oh well again. The important point is that my fragmented tidbits of knowledge led to a discussion of the history of hell imagery and caves, which we were able to connect to Dante’s Bridge, on which we had crossed over an extraordinarily deep pit on our morning tour.

We had a lot of nature moments on our tour. I pointed out tulip trees, showing students the flower parts and uniquely-shaped leaves. In one of our brief moments when the guide addressed the group, he explained that water had been brought down to the saltpeter mines through a pipe made from tulip tree trunks. I pointed out how straight the tulip trees grow, explaining that it made the tree valuable not only for pipes but for ship masts. There were also fabulous sycamores, white oaks, shagbark hickories, and cedars. The spring ephemerals were beginning to bloom. I told the students what “ephemeral” means and how these flowers go through their whole life cycle while there is light on the forest floor before the leaves close the canopy. I showed them bloodroot and hepatica and talked about the Doctrine of Signatures, which held that a plant that resembled a body part was good for treating illness of that part. We saw wild ginger, wild iris, and larkspur! I was very excited about the larkspur, one of my favorite flowers and one I don’t see in the wild often. Sadly, the photo I took was out of focus.

Wild iris

Out-of-focus larkspur

As we started walking back up the hill from the river, we passed a tree that had grown around a flood marker. It seemed to me that the water would have to be pretty darn high to get up that far. 

Tree growing around a flood ruler

Just before we got to the top, we saw three deer walking along the trail nibbling at the new foliage on the seedlings.

Deer browsing by the trail

The number of complete idiots on the afternoon tour was mind boggling.

On our way back to the lodge, we met a woman walking on the road. Kate made a correct assumption that she was the site manager and engaged her in conversations. As I watch the woman’s gestures, I figured out that she was explaining to Kate how to light the oven.

Kate recruited two of the boys to cook spaghetti. I turned the gas on again and lit the pilots. Following the manager’s instruction, I was more aggressive with the panel. It turned out that if one lifted it up ever so slightly, it pivoted open quite easily. I pressed the red button on the right and punched to red button on the left. After a couple of punches, we hear the comforting whoosh of flames. We wouldn’t have to eat frozen garlic bread.

Incredibly, we had dinner ready before 6:30. Kate and I went out to the patio, where we were joined by three of the girls who had also had enough with the noise. We had a nice debrief.

I had a good sleep. The students were eager to get on the road the next day. They ate a quick breakfast and got right to work sweeping and cleaning. In the quest for cleaning supplies we opened one of the numerous closets to discover tables. Probably if we’d looked hard enough we could have found chairs also.

We were packed and on the road 10 minutes before our goal of 8:00. And, to make a long, long story short, we were back on campus at 4:30, and very glad to be home.