We departed Old Federal Campground on Thursday, July 20, at 11:25 AM EDT. Before leaving, we wanted to say good-by to my father-in-law, so we paid him a visit first. We didn’t really have that far to travel anyway. We were going to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to visit the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and decided to camp at The Crosseyed Cricket campground near Lenoir, Tennessee. This is a small, family-owned campground kind of in the middle of nowhere, although it was only a couple of miles from the interstate. There isn’t an office, but a drop box where you can pay for your site. We were lucky enough to get a pull-through site, number 41, that was near a stream. Actually, it was kind of a nice, quiet place to camp. The campground did have a nice pool, although we didn’t swim while there. The children of other campers certainly seemed to enjoy it. The location of the campground made us feel like we were in the hills of Tennessee no where near civilization. Actually, Oak Ridge wasn’t that far away. The one rather small issue was that the roads off the interstate to the campground were rather narrow, but we managed.
We got up early Friday morning, July 21, to travel to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, less than 20 miles away from the campground. We wanted to get there before the museum opened because we needed to get same-day tickets for the Oak Ridge Laboratory Bus Tour and thought perhaps there might be a long line for that. There was a line, but not as long as we feared. No problem though, it was rather nice outside so the wait wasn’t bad. We did get our tickets for the 11:30 AM bus tour, and walked around the Museum of Science and Energy until it was time to load the bus. I should mention for those who don’t know, Oak Ridge was established by the Corps of Engineers in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project. Two other sites were also part of the Manhattan Project, one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Los Alamos, New Mexico. These three sites helped develop the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.
The bus tour took us to a number of the buildings within the Oak Ridge area that were all part of the Manhattan Project and new buildings that are used today to further research. The tour was an interesting history lesson. I particularly enjoyed seeing the X-10 Graphite Reactor. Enrico Fermi and his team had created the first artificial nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. However, the Manhattan Project needed a reactor a thousand times more powerful and facilities to chemically separate the plutonium created in the reactor from uranium and the fission products. An intermediate step was needed and that reactor was the X-10. Construction of the reactor began in Oak Ridge on February 2, 1943. On November 4, 1943, the reactor went critical. The first plutonium was produced in early 1944 and that went to the Los Alamos Laboratory. With lessons learned from the X-10 reactor, production of plutonium moved on to Hanford, Washington. The X-10 reactor continued with plutonium production until January, 1945. After that, the reactor was used in research activities and the production of radioactive isotopes for scientific, medical, and agricultural uses. The reactor was shut down in 1963 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
The bus tour lasted three hours and was certainly enjoyable. We returned to the Museum of Science and Energy at 2:30 PM, but were too late to attend a demonstration of the Van de Graaff generator. As we were looking inside the empty auditorium where the demonstration is held, the presenter began talking to us. My husband had seen this as a child and thought it was really cool. The presenter was kind enough to do a quick demonstration for us with me as the “victim”. 😉
Saturday, July 22, was a day of rest for us and Sunday, July 23, was a travel day. We departed The Crosseyed Cricket as 10:50 AM EDT and drove towards Mammoth Cave National Park near Cave Springs, Kentucky. We set up camp at the Singing Hill Campgrounds at 1 PM CDT, just a few miles from the park.
Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system on our planet. We’ve both been in caves previously, but this would be my first visit to Mammoth Cave. My husband had visited the cave when he was a child and had fun memories of that visit. We wanted to explore the cave as much as possible and had made reservations for three cave tours online.
Our first cave tour began on Monday, July 24 and was titled Domes and Dripstones. We assembled at the Visitor’s Center where a 4 minute bus ride dropped us off at the New Entrance to the cave. This entrance to Mammoth Cave was created prior to the cave becoming a national park by men who wanted to cash in on the popularity of Mammoth Cave and cave tours in general. Originally, it was felt this cave entrance did not take visitors to Mammoth Cave, although it was marketed as a tour of Mammoth Cave. A passageway was later found connecting this entrance to Mammoth Cave. There are actually a number of other caves in this area of Kentucky and as the passageways are explored, some of those other caves are found to be part of the Mammoth Cave system.
The entrance for the Domes and Dripstones Tour takes visitors down 280 narrow, steel steps. The passageway itself can be quite narrow and there were a few times I had to duck my head or turn sideways to get through the passage. We mostly climbed down steps, but occasionally, the tour had us climbing up steps again. I had put on a sweatshirt at the beginning of the tour thinking I would be cool in the cave. The cave was cool, but the climbing kept me warm enough that I had to remove the sweatshirt when we stopped for our first break. (I didn’t wear a sweatshirt for the other two tours. Yes, I can learn.) We were shown a small, dark, rocky ledge at one of our stops that turned out to be the passageway that eventually led to Mammoth Cave. It isn’t a route that visitors can take. Apparently, it’s narrow and one has to crawl to get to Mammoth Cave proper. The point is that the area where we were was indeed a part of the Mammoth Cave system.
Towards the end of the tour, we entered the largest rooms of this tour. Much of Mammoth Cave is dry limestone, but these rooms were still growing. This was the Drapery Room, named for the wet limestone formations that look like long curtains. We walked down steps to see the full extent of the formation which is where I took the photo below.
The two hour tour ended shortly after seeing the Drapery Room and we walked back out to the hot sunlight. This tour was rated as moderate difficult, as were the other two tours we took. Of the three tours, this one was the most physically demanding, but it wasn’t that bad. After lunch and a little re-hydration, we were ready to go.
Tuesday, July 25, we did the Historic Cave Tour, another two hour tour. The tour left from the Visitor’s Center and we walked about a tenth of a mile (it seemed longer to me) downhill to the natural cave entrance. We did take photos during the tour, but they are just too fuzzy to include in the post. My husband remembered parts of this tour as the one he took as a child. We walked through the Rotunda, a huge room near the beginning of the tour, the Church, where services were held early in the cave’s history, and learned about saltpeter mining operations in the cave for the War of 1812. There’s sort of a funny story about the Church. The minister would walk the people to the Church room and the folks would carry lanterns to light their way. When they got to the Church room, the minister would have the folks put their lanterns up on a ledge, out of their reach. The folks would have to remain on their benches until the minister finished the service because they didn’t have a light to get back to the entrance. Apparently the services were kind of long. 🙂 As far as the tour itself was concerned, some of the passages were narrow, but quite manageable. This tour felt quite different from the Domes and Dripstones tour and we were glad we did this one as well. The biggest obstacle was the walk uphill back to the Visitor’s Center at tour’s end. Oh well, we figured it was good for us.
Our last tour was the Gothic Avenue Tour that we did on Wednesday, July 26. The Gothic Avenue Tour mimicked the Historic Cave Tour in that we entered the cave through the natural cave entrance and walked through the Rotunda as we did the previous day. However, after that, we took a different passage to a different part of the cave system. As we were walking, we saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of names written on the ceiling of the cave. The names had been written with the smoke from candles by visitors to the cave in the 1800’s. Obviously, this practice isn’t allowed anymore and electric lighting has eliminated the need for candles. Some of the names have been researched, so we know approximately when they visited the cave. In addition to writing names on the ceiling, there was also a practice of gathering stones to make a marker for the visitors’ states. A few of those makers remain in place, but most have been dismantled. The people who toured the caves in the early years tended to be wealthier folks and they would wear their nice clothes, long dresses, etc. There wasn’t necessarily a cleared passage for them to use and the way wasn’t lit with electric lights. I guess you really had to enjoy caving back then. Towards the end of the tour, we did come across a stalactite/stalagmite formation that was an important part of the early tours.
From this point, we retraced our steps back to the cave entrance and walked back up the hill. (The walk up the hill was a little easier this day.) All three of the tours we took were fun and unique, and I can’t really tell you which one I preferred, so if you have the opportunity, do more than one tour. Mammoth Cave is a big cave and you will certainly see different things on each tour. You can even take a tour where you’re given a gas lantern for lighting instead of using the electric lights. We didn’t do that one, but it might be a real hoot.
After the last tour and after lunch, we decided to drive to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. There are two units of the historical park and both are located near Hodgenville, KY, not too far from Mammoth Cave National Park. We all know that Abraham Lincoln was born and lived in a log cabin. The first unit at Sinking Spring is his birthplace. The spring provided the Lincoln family with water year-round and kind of sits in a hollow down from where the cabin was built. The cabin no longer exists, but a memorial building was erected to the President to commemorate the place. Inside the building is a replica of the log cabin of Lincoln’s birth. At first, it was thought the cabin was THE log cabin, but further analysis indicates that the cabin was built years after Lincoln was born. I didn’t take a photo of the replica log cabin, but have a pictures of the memorial building.
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We spent about an hour at this location and then drove to the second unit, Lincoln’s boyhood home at Knob Creek. Lincoln’s family moved to this location when he was two years old and stayed until he was seven. There is another replica log cabin at this site as well and hiking trails. We didn’t take any photos of this log cabin either, but the time spent at both locations was well spent. It was really quite peaceful at both locations.
We had fun in Kentucky, but it was time to move on. On Thursday, July 27, we departed Singing Hills Campground at 8:25 AM CDT and arrived at my husband’s cousin’s home in Hume, IL at 2:15 PM CDT. I’ve talked about Hume, IL before and frankly, nothing much has changed. It’s still a quiet, small town that lends itself to relaxation. And relax is what we did for the next few days. We left for home on Monday, July 31 at 9:30 AM CDT and arrived at the RV storage place at 2 PM CDT. Hume, IL was a good place to wind down from our summer travels.
We traveled through 21 states and 5 Canadian provinces, driving 8395 miles. We camped in all 5 Canadian provinces and 15 of the 21 states. Not bad. My two favorite Canadian provinces were the islands, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. The islands were very different, but beautiful in their own way. The other three provinces were nice, too, but the islands were just a little more unique. I have to say the Bay of Fundy was pretty cool and Peggy’s Cove was gorgeous. I found I really enjoyed traveling by ferry. The weather in Canada was cool as we expected. Because we didn’t really hit the hot summer weather until we got back to the States, our summer seemed shorter than normal, but I can live with that, too. All in all, our summer travels were great and our travel trailer was home sweet, home during our time on the road. We had a really good time.
Tales from the Snail Shell 