mammoth caves national park

when we finally got to mammoth caves, it was almost 1pm, but we were excited to learn we crossed into the central time zone, giving us back an hour!

we missed the tour going into the caves at noon, but got tickets for the 1pm "new entrance" tour. it was nice to have a little time to sit, eat our sandwiches, fill out a few postcards, and relax for a minute.

they loaded the large tour group onto a bus, and we drove to the entrance to the cave. it was a tiny door in the hillside. we filed in one by one, and descended over 300 steps snaking through cracks in the cavern, until we all reached a large cavern 250'+ under ground. pretty cool!

the rangers stopped us along the way to talk about how the caves were formed, the history of their exploration, and to point out different features. we walked up and down, winding through the passages for close to 2 hours. the first parts were functionally interesting, and the last bit was where water dripping into the caves created awesome formations, including a large one called "frozen niagara".

as with many stops on our trip, the sights and information we took in were really fascinating, and left us wanting more! the pictures don't begin to do it justice. next time i would highly recommend some of the more strenuous tours to get off the beaten path!