We crossed through Mobile (which has the COOLEST tunnel under their port.... or so I thought until I drove under Baltimore's bay in the COOLEST tunnel ever!) and headed up to Montgomery, or Birmingham (i don't remember) to crash for the night at a campground. This was back in the day when I needed showers and flush toilets and was willing to pay for them, like a CHUMP, at a private campground. Nowadays I am willing to forgo those niceties for a FREE campground :-).
The next day we headed up to Lynchburg, TN to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery. Neither R or myself is in to whiskey but why not visit anyway. The distillery is set in the hills and is a gorgeous ride... much like the Maker's Mark Distillery visit of my youth. It was a great way to be introduced to the Appalachians. After that stop, we continued north to visit Mammoth Cave National Park. On a previous road trip, R and I went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and we liked it so much, we decided to check out another one. This cave was very very different from Carlsbad. No huge rooms like "the Big Room", but with over 300 miles of underground riverway, there was plenty to explore.
We chose to hit a ranger-guided tour that involved a bus ride to a more remote part of the cave. There, in a wooded dirt parking lot, was a pad-locked metal doorway into the side of a small hill. Only slightly creepy. The guide warned us that there were over 100 metal steps to go down right at the beginning to get into the main chambers, and they were slippery. Slightly more creepy. He failed to mention the THOUSANDS of SPIDERS that were living at the entrance on the roof overhead, waiting for the door to open and admit the tiniest amount of light. Once they see the light, they begin to bounce. OMG way more creepy!
(If you need a refresher on my history with spiders.... here, and here.) And you can't run, NO, not with the slippery steps of death or the line of 30 people who all want to run with you. NO! I spent the whole walk down the steps alternatively pushing the old man in front of me and squealing "get them off of me!". In actuality, there were no spiders on me. It's a mind-fuck.
Once we got down to the bottom, everyone chilled out. The place was cool and damp, dark and long. Its not overly decorated like Carlsbad but it has some fantastic history. The locals used it as a tuberculosis ward back during the Civil War and up to the turn of the century. Awesome! Survive the spiders to die by TB...
We did survive, and drove on up to Louisville and headed west to West Virginia. In all honesty, I don't remember West Virginia on that trip.... sorry West Virginians. Here - interesting fact to make up for lack of being memorable - If you ironed West Virginia flat, it'd be larger than Texas.
Ok, moving on to Maryland and Baltimore next time!
*If you took nothing else away from this piece, remember to always ask if there will be spiders on your cave tours....
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