Lakeview Crew

Our Mammoth Cave National Park adventure was, well, mammoth.  🙂  We packed as much fun as we possibly could in 4 short days.  Not only did we visit the Mammoth Cave but we also went horseback riding, zip-lining, and canoeing (more posts to come on those).  It was AWESOME.  The kids of course worked on getting their Jr. Ranger badges.  They completed their activity books and even went on a Jr. Ranger tour where they learned about being a “Naturalist.”

The cave itself is just spectacular.  We went on two different tours, the Historic tour and the Domes and Drip Stones tour.  Both were about two hours long.  Half the time, the Ranger was talking to the group and the other half was spent walking and viewing the cave.   We absolutely loved everything the Historic tour had to offer.  We were treated to gigantic empty rooms that seemed to go on forever to “suck in the gut” passage ways (Fat Man’s Misery).  The Domes and Drip Stones tour wasn’t as exciting or breathtaking until the last 20 minutes or so, when we got to see the Frozen Niagara, a spectacular rock formation that looks like a frozen waterfall (super cool).  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get many pictures inside the cave.  The tour was full and between keeping up with the group and keeping up with the kiddos, there just wasn’t enough time for me to setup and take the pictures that would truly do the cave justice.  There also wasn’t much light in the cave and you would definitely need some sort of tripod to hold your camera still (note to self).  At any rate, we definitely plan on going back and enjoying all of the things this park has to offer.  The canoeing alone was worth the trip!

We had just finished eating dinner at Turtleini’s located in Horse Cave, KY when the kids spotted a playground about a block away.  By the time we knew what was going on, it was too late.  The kids were already being pulled in by it’s tractor-beam, resistance was futile.  Side note: during the kids playground adventure we were visited by a super sweet, if not a little nosy, Horse Cave local.

Hunter had a great time during our Mammoth Cave National Park adventure.  Can ya tell?  A “Mammoth” post to come soon.  🙂

The adventure continues with our second National Park family trip!  This time the Crew made the short drive up to South Carolina’s Congaree National Park.  Congaree was a totally different experience to our Smokey Mountain National Park trip.  This park could best be described as a majestic swamp boardwalk.  That’s right, our entire hike was on a man-made boardwalk over a swamp bottom that seriously looked like it could gobble us up if we were to stray off the trail.  The swampy bottom prevented underbrush from growing so all you could see were more and more trees in the distance.  The park was also full of wild life.  We saw everything from tiny caterpillars, squirrels and raccoons, deer, to all sorts of birds.  Oh and insects…lots of insects as Hunter will attest to.  Poor guy, he was MISERABLE.  Hunter has…an aversion…to bugs right now.  He doesn’t like them.  AT ALL.  As you can probably tell by some of the pictures below.  As a matter of fact, he was practically glued to Mommy the entire hike which is why the photos of him on the hike are limited.  Speaking of bugs, Kayla was smart enough to schedule our visit to correspond with the  synchronous Fireflies phenomenon that happens every year and lasts about 2 weeks.  This was the highlight of the trip.  Very cool stuff.  You can read more about it here but essentially the Fireflies come out around 8-10 PM and put on a light show for all visitors to enjoy.  During this time groups of Fireflies synchronize and look like floating Christmas lights.  So glad we got to experience this.  The kids also completed their Jr. Ranger activity books and got their Congaree Jr. Ranger badges as a reward.  So proud of these kiddos.  We’ll mark this trip as a success, despite the bugs, and we look forward to our next National Park adventure.