I took a notion to see Kentucky's only National Park, which I had thus far neglected to do in all my nearly ten years in this state, on MLK day back in January. It just felt like a fun thing to do with the day off.
It also occurred to me that, despite the day being cold and indeed snowy, a cave tour was the perfect thing, since the 55-ish degree interior would feel practically balmy compared to the weather outside. With the reports of road conditions being good enough, I set off in the early afternoon. Because of the length of the drive and the time change, the tour that made the most sense for the day time-wise was also the shorter, mass-market tour called the Frozen Niagara tour, which the guide reminded us a number of times was the "shortest tour of the longest cave in the world". The subtle implication being: we should all come back and do another one.
We started up at the visitors center:
before boarding the school bus that took us to the entrance. Inside, as you might expect, looked like a cave:
We soon arrived at the large room containing the Frozen Niagara:
which, as the guide explained, was really the only major area of the entire cave system which was "wet", or had active water movement in it, forming things like stalagmites and stalactites. Most of the cave is dry and dusty, with none of these sorts of formations. So even though this was a short tour, we really did see the major attraction.
We went a bit further, to the edge of the "dry" section, to see names carved into the walls:
the dates, rest assured, are from the nineteen twenties, not the current decade.
Back at the Frozen Niagara, we were allowed to descend the stairs to get an up close view of it if we wished:
then it was back outside. It had been mentioned during the tour that the natural entrance was a short walk from the visitor center, so when we returned, I went and saw it:
before heading back north.
