Mammoth Cave NP and the BoyScouts from Hell

*This post was started on-site in Kentucky and intended for a timely upload but we didn't quite get around to it until much later!*

Greetings from gorgeous Kentucky! 

The past few days have seen Miriam and I in what is the beautiful backcountry of southern Kentucky.  I had originally thought we would bypass both Kentucky and Tennessee when we did our initial planning since I really didn’t think there was a whole heck of a lot down here (which meant we declined maps and guide books from AAA).  Boy was I wrong!  Well, I guess there’s not a whole lot of “stuff” down here but it sure is an amazing place to visit and see.  We arrived Wednesday evening around 6:30 with 58.77 hours on our engine clock, meaning we’ve been in the car for about two and half days at this point!  Keep in mind the engine clock is running anytime the ignition key is turned, so this counts for any idling, or being-parked-with-the-radio-on-ness, but it’s still a fairly accurate account of how long we’ve been in the wagon traversing the country. 

 

Kentucky has a beautiful capitol building...or at least half of one!

My faithful navigator plotted a course from I-64 around Lexington, KY due south on some back roads to expedite our arrival at Mammoth Cave National Park.  Google Maps theorized that this trek would take about two and a half hours on the highway, but the navigator (I won’t mention any names here!) insisted that back roads would be a quicker route since they seemed more direct.  Since (to paraphrase Tennyson) “t’was not mine to reason why, t’was only mine to do and….drive”, I accepted our new course and headed due south through  the surprisingly clean and well-kept city of Lexington onto some nice “back roads”.  To make a long story short, about four hours later we wound up at the park, after navigating our galleon through some twisty, windy, hilly, and often un-or-ill-marked roads.  I actually have to say it was a much nicer way to see this beautiful state, though.  The roads we were on I doubt many locals would even have seen unless they lived on them.  More than a few times, however, we were angrily passed by some local yokels who were apparently annoyed with my not wishing to have our frigate wind up in a ditch around a sharp corner or turn someone’s new car into a crushed like a soda can when we hit them head on around a blind curve (I’m fairly confident we’d make out it alive in our tank).  After a lot of gas, gas, brake, gas, brake, gas, action, we made our way through some really pristine horse farms, and some quaint country cattle ranches that lined the various byways and into the tourist trap that is the outskirts of Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP).  By the way, the seemingly harsh ribbing at the “navigator” is intentional, as Miriam has no idea what I’m reporting on until after I post since I have imposed a strict “don’t read my stuff while I’m typing” clause…so it’s always interesting to see her reactions afterwards. 

 

Endless Chasm, The handrail visible in the corner is quite comforting!

Our first full day at MCNP found Miriam and I engaged in a cave tour, which was fantastic.  It would have been a bit better in a smaller group (we’re estimating there were about 70 or so people in our group), as Miriam experienced the dread of having two teenage brothers horseplaying behind her as we made our way through the cave.  I think they eventually got the hint when she asked them “do you want to go ahead of us?”, after a bout of their pushing and pulling one another nearly off the tour path and into the chasms below.  The cave itself was amazing though, especially since this was the first time I had been in one.  The air was damp and the ambient temperature was a steady 55 to 57 degrees, as caves tend to be.  There were not a ton of special rock formations or colorful strata to observe, as the entire cave is essentially one giant piece of limestone carved out over millions upon millions of years.  In over 400 miles of passages (making Mammoth the largest surveyed cave system in the world by over twice its next competitor), there is apparently only about 1/8^th mile of rock formations (stalagmites and stalactites) which we were fortunate enough to see on our tour.  It was hard to get a good look at the cave or the rock formations as the group dynamic lent itself to a virtual ebb and surge motion with the front moving and the rear always catching up.  With us near the front, this meant we couldn’t really stop long enough to take pictures without getting overrun by the rear guard, and had we stayed in the back we would be forever running through the cave to catch up.  We did manage a few shots but they don’t do justice to how it actually looks down in the cave.  

Chamber formed by a collapse (they don't call them cave ins!)

This, dear readers, brings us to the second part of the title of this installment, our campground company.  Shortly after arriving and registering with the Ranger station for a campsite, we proceeded to said campsite and began our usual setup operations when we saw a white (short) shuttle bus coming up the campground road.  Keep in mind almost all the adjacent campsites were taken but empty, most of the people being out on cave tours during the day.  Anyway, blazoned in blue letters above the windshield and across this short white bus’s front panel was a somewhat ominous “REAPER PRIDE” slogan.  I immediately relayed to Miriam my first thought on this “Wow, that’s an AWFUL retirement home motto!!”  We both got a good laugh and quickly realized that it must have been a high school trip of sorts when the bus emptied with semi-loud teenagers.  We braced ourselves for some loud and obnoxious teenage drama for the rest of the night but overall they weren't terrible neighbors. 

Our Campsite at Mammoth Cave

The next morning they packed up and left and we were treated later in the day to a Boy Scout caravan pulling up to our adjacent site and the one next to that as well.  When I say caravan, I’m not talking about a Dodge Caravan, which would be a single vehicle. No, this was three or four vehicles (vans, trucks, a trailer full of stuff, and a car or two), filled to the brim with Boy Scouts of varying ages.  They were certainly not quiet setting up camp, which is understandable since I’m sure getting settled with 14 teen and pre-teen boys and four or five adults can be confusing.  We were granted a reprieve when they loaded up and headed out to do who knows what for the day (although Miriam and I were certainly NOT hoping for a cave-in should they have been on a caving tour).  Just after dark they decided to return and were quite the rambunctious crowd for a group that was supposedly out doing things for the better part of a day.  I guess helping little old ladies cross the street and rubbing sticks together till they burst into flame just doesn’t take it out of kids nowadays and they need to let off some steam at the end of the day.

Miriam credits her fire-building skills not to any scouting experience but to her Daaaaaaad! (read on, you'll get it)

 Let me mention first that we had another contingent of banjo-playin’ pickup-drivin’ good ol’ boys move in just down the road earlier in the day and who started their guitar and banjo festivities a bit early in the day (luckily they didn’t suck at playing so it wasn’t too bad, but still pretty loud).  So hopefully the picture is coming into focus now.  Teens in a bus designed to frighten the elderly, the Hatfields and McCoys playing Dueling Banjos (literally…no, they actually started with that one) down the road, and now loud Boy Shout…err Scout, teens right next door.  Miriam had fallen asleep but I stayed up reading and finally heard them turn in around 11:30 or thereabouts.  I’m not sure if a Ranger had stopped by at some point or not, but the loud conversation quelled for a few minutes and then picked back up again and resumed until they finally retreated into their tents.  Not to mention that the entire troop continually cut through our across-the-street neighbors’ campsite on their way to AND from the bathroom for the entire day.  You would think they would teach you not to walk through sites that have a tent, a car, and two people hanging out in them but I supposed if you can’t tie a knot around it, it ain’t worth learnin’. 

Cooking over the coals
Perhaps she was distracted by the scouts but it took nearly all of the Virginia guidebook to get the fire going!

The next morning Miriam was woken up to the sound of Revelry being blared via Kazoo to roust the boys.  Apparently no one else has ears that function at 6a.m. in a public campground.  I guess I slept through the bugle-kazoo playing since I distinctly remember waking up to the shrill cry of “Daaaaaaaaad!!!” by perhaps the most annoying and spoiled snot-nosed kid to grace the ranks of Boys Scoutery.  His repetitive calls to his paternal figure continued for the next half hour or so, with Miriam and I quietly adding in our own after-phrases to both keep ourselves amused and from strangling him.  We did learn that it apparently did not matter if the Daaaaaaad was two feet or two hundred feet away, as the volume of the call never faltered below a jet-engine decibel level.  “Daaaaaaaad!!!” has now entered our lexicon as the battle cry for anything that is slightly annoying in or around camp. 

Different location, same sentiment!

Miriam finally got up to go say something to the chaperons when she was intercepted by the only lady among the group who apologized before Miriam could vent to her about keeping her troop quiet at 6 a.m.  Miriam later went to one of the male adults and explained to him that in fact other people could hear them at 6a.m. to which he replied “Well we’ve got to get them up somehow”.  The Boy Scouts of America, folks!  I’m certainly not tainted by my fair share of rigged pinewood derbies or nonsensicle popsicle stick projects as a youth in the Cub Scouts or anything. 

There were other adventures at MCNP but I think it is more appropriate to reserve this post to just the complaints about our camping experience there.  With almost no bugs (except a herd of the biggest Daddy Longlegs spiders we had ever seen constantly harassing our camping gear, and hundreds of fireflies at night) and essentially no harmful wildlife it was a pretty good experience altogether.  Had we encountered bears and bees and biting flies as well as having our neighbor problems, we most likely would have left earlier to greener pastures                  

RhK Rob

(Pictures added by Miriam)