The early part of last week, the kids and I traveled to Mammoth Cave Kentucky with Angela and her boys, Russ and Mary, and my niece Janna.
We left late morning on Monday, and stopped about an hour south of Cincinnati for lunch. The boys spontaneously held hands all the way across the parking lot, and I was able to capture the cuteness.
That night after we got to the cabin, we unloaded the cars and got settled. Each family was in charge of preparing one of the nightly meals, and I chose to do Dutch Oven chicken, potatoes, and cobbler on Monday night. The potatoes were a little salty, but everything tasted excellent!
On Tuesday morning, we drove to the cave. I took the kids outside to wander around for a bit while everybody else bought souvenirs. Brooklyn saw me with the camera, turned around, and said 'Cheese!'
We rode buses from the visitor's center to the cave. I was having middle school flashbacks!
The older boy cousins were cute with Brooklyn. Other than Janna, she was the only girl out of the five boys, and is the smallest and most portable of all the grand kids (at this point). I think she enjoyed all the attention!
The cave tour we chose lasted about two hours, and had about 300 steps total. Jeremy, Janna, Josh and I had gotten ahead of everybody else when we filed in the cave entrance, so we decided about halfway down to stop and wait for everybody else. I was feeling a little stressed out being separated from Brooklyn and Kadon with all the steep drops and narrow passages in the cave.
The engineers did a great job making the cave more visitor-friendly, but there were still incredibly narrow passages and parts where even the kids had to duck. They tried to alter the cave as little as possible in order to preserve the history, and I'm glad. It was really neat!
I tried not to think about how many tons of earth were pressing down above our heads. The cave was about 55 degrees on the inside, which was cold until we started climbing.
The cave also constantly dripped, which is partly what is responsible for forming these amazing stalactites.
At the very bottom of the cave, we all gathered together and I petitioned a random stranger to take a group photo. I love random strangers.
After the Mammoth Cave adventure, we all trooped back to the cabin and had lunch, then left Russ and Mary at the cabin with a napping Brooklyn while we went down the street and rode bumper cards, miniature golfed, and rode the alpine slide.
We had the bumper cars to ourselves, and everybody had a fabulous time! The first time I went, I had Kadon with me--I wanted to keep the ride going just so I could enjoy his deep belly laughs!
The alpine slide was like nothing else I have ever done. We rode chair lifts up to the top of the mountain, exactly like the chair lifts I have ridden the times that I have been skiing.
The higher we got up the chair lift, the more nervous I got. By the time we reached the top and I realized I was going to simply sit on top of a small plastic sled and barrel down this concrete chute, I was pretty sure I had lost whatever sense was mine to begin with.
There is no seat belt on the small blue sled. There is no riding double, and you have to be at least 6 to ride. I was actually a little glad that Kadon and Brooklyn couldn't go-less stressful for me!
We came back on our way out of town so that Russ could ride the alpine slide. Angela and I stayed at the bottom with Brooklyn and Kadon, and sent everybody else up for one more ride.
Even Mary got in on the action!
I'm sure Russ and Jeremy were more thrilled with the ride than this picture shows.
We left late morning on Monday, and stopped about an hour south of Cincinnati for lunch. The boys spontaneously held hands all the way across the parking lot, and I was able to capture the cuteness.
That night after we got to the cabin, we unloaded the cars and got settled. Each family was in charge of preparing one of the nightly meals, and I chose to do Dutch Oven chicken, potatoes, and cobbler on Monday night. The potatoes were a little salty, but everything tasted excellent!
On Tuesday morning, we drove to the cave. I took the kids outside to wander around for a bit while everybody else bought souvenirs. Brooklyn saw me with the camera, turned around, and said 'Cheese!'
We rode buses from the visitor's center to the cave. I was having middle school flashbacks!
The older boy cousins were cute with Brooklyn. Other than Janna, she was the only girl out of the five boys, and is the smallest and most portable of all the grand kids (at this point). I think she enjoyed all the attention!
The cave tour we chose lasted about two hours, and had about 300 steps total. Jeremy, Janna, Josh and I had gotten ahead of everybody else when we filed in the cave entrance, so we decided about halfway down to stop and wait for everybody else. I was feeling a little stressed out being separated from Brooklyn and Kadon with all the steep drops and narrow passages in the cave.
The engineers did a great job making the cave more visitor-friendly, but there were still incredibly narrow passages and parts where even the kids had to duck. They tried to alter the cave as little as possible in order to preserve the history, and I'm glad. It was really neat!
I tried not to think about how many tons of earth were pressing down above our heads. The cave was about 55 degrees on the inside, which was cold until we started climbing.
The cave also constantly dripped, which is partly what is responsible for forming these amazing stalactites.
At the very bottom of the cave, we all gathered together and I petitioned a random stranger to take a group photo. I love random strangers.
After the Mammoth Cave adventure, we all trooped back to the cabin and had lunch, then left Russ and Mary at the cabin with a napping Brooklyn while we went down the street and rode bumper cards, miniature golfed, and rode the alpine slide.
We had the bumper cars to ourselves, and everybody had a fabulous time! The first time I went, I had Kadon with me--I wanted to keep the ride going just so I could enjoy his deep belly laughs!
The alpine slide was like nothing else I have ever done. We rode chair lifts up to the top of the mountain, exactly like the chair lifts I have ridden the times that I have been skiing.
The higher we got up the chair lift, the more nervous I got. By the time we reached the top and I realized I was going to simply sit on top of a small plastic sled and barrel down this concrete chute, I was pretty sure I had lost whatever sense was mine to begin with.
There is no seat belt on the small blue sled. There is no riding double, and you have to be at least 6 to ride. I was actually a little glad that Kadon and Brooklyn couldn't go-less stressful for me!
We came back on our way out of town so that Russ could ride the alpine slide. Angela and I stayed at the bottom with Brooklyn and Kadon, and sent everybody else up for one more ride.
Even Mary got in on the action!
I'm sure Russ and Jeremy were more thrilled with the ride than this picture shows.
3 comments:
How fun! What a great adventure and even greater memories!
How nice to take time to do fun things. That was something Rachelle Nolan mentioned in her talk on Sunday that I really took to heart, "There is always so much work to be done, but you need to take time to play."
In the 10 years I have lived here, even though it is so close and like the largest cave,I have never been there.
That looks like tons of fun!! I love Alpine slides!
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