Mammoth Cave National Park

Alright y'all...do I have some tales to tell!! Recently my beloved family and myself took our very first road trip. That's right people, we loaded all five of the little ones in our new 12 passenger van and headed on down to Tennessee. We weren't really sure how the trip was going to go, how long the children would last in the van, or how antsy they would get, so we decided to just kind of play it by ear. Our first night ended in Urbana, Illinois. We could have possibly gotten further, however it started to rain/snow and we didn't want to drive in the dark, in unfamiliar territory, with bad weather. So we found a hotel, the kids swam, mommy ran on the treadmill, daddy lifted weights, and we had a lovely continental breakfast the next morning. To make it even better, the hotel management gave us our room for free. That's right, I said FREE!! You see, we had a pull-out couch in our room and we discovered that it was wet. They brought in roll-aways, which was just fine. When Michael went to check out, the manager decided to just comp the room since it should never have been rented out...woot, woot!!! Well, we all piled back in the van (much to Lou's dismay!) and headed to Kentucky. This was a beautiful ride, full of sheer cliff mountains and trickling waterfalls near the interstate. I was pleasantly surprised, and a bit afraid of heights all of a sudden:) We made it to Mammoth Cave National Park in late afternoon and got tickets for a 2 hour tour of the cave. Michael had planned on carrying Louie in the backpack, but they said no back carriers were allowed. Hmmm...this may be a problem. Oh, well...onward...I mean downward we forged!! The cave tour was AWESOME!! Fearless expressed numerous times that it was the best thing he had ever done in his whole 9 years of life. We quickly discovered why you couldn't have back carriers. There were parts where you needed to duck and walk backwards to get through. One portion of the trail was call "fat man's misery" and it was so true. The cave rocks were about waist high and some parts weren't even as wide as my hips. The ceiling seemed to be closing in as well, and I have to admit that I nearly had a bit of a panic attack with claustrophobia. During one point, Little T tripped and seemed to be sucked down in the little walking space. Michael quickly grabbed her up, but she was less than happy about it. It was so cool to see the soot markings on the walls from people who were there in the 1800's. There was one part were the guide said there were ancient writings (I have a picture below.) It was a great day, and a great start to our trip down south........more to come so stick around.....