MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK, KY

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News:

By: Jaycie Lillie, 7/15/22

We did a tour and to start it off the tour guide scared us and said that there was a rescue per day! And some don’t make it out. I was a little too scared to enjoy it at first. The cave is GINORMUS! We only did a little bit of it on our tour. It was treacherous what we did do. The stairs were switch backs and stacked straight up and down. There were also submarine steps. The last bit was cooler and had a paved road and we saw a cave cricket [ewwwww]. The frozen niagra was cool. After, we started our Junior Ranger books. We had to pay 2 whole dollars for each one! We looked at the visitor center and then got our badges. After that, we did another booklet and got another badge! Overall, Jett and I got 2 badges each that day. After we did a fossil program. Then we left to go buy me a new mattress! The end.

Jules’ Journal:

By Julianne Lillie, 7/15/22

We had a 45 minute drive from our campground to Mammoth Cave visitor’s center this morning. We arrived at 9am when they opened and it was already busy! We headed straight for the Ranger’s desk to pick up the Junior Ranger booklets only to find out they charged $2 a booklet. And if you needed a pencil you had to buy one of those, too! Out of the 17 Junior Ranger programs we’ve done, this was the first National Park service center that has charged for a booklet, so we were surprised and a bit disappointed by that. Nonetheless, we purchased our booklets and the kids eagerly started on them while we waiting on our cave tour.

At 10am we took the Ranger led “Domes & Dripstones” tour. It started off with 300+ stairs straight down and took 2 hours to explore. It was INCREDIBLE! We saw “Frozen Niagra” towards the end which is a huge group of stalactites (hanging from the top) that formed what looks like a huge waterfall frozen in stone.

Below is the entrance to the cave tour leading straight down to stair.

We also had some stairs going backup in spots and the passageways were very narrow.

Here's Frozen Niagra.

We also saw other beautiful cave formations such as flowstone and draperies.

After the tour we had lunch at the snack shack onsite which surprisingly had a wide range of food that was really good! After lunch, the kids finished up their booklets as much as they could before it called for a hike. We did a short hike to the historic entrance to the cave and to the cemetary.

Historic entrance to the cave. Just hiking down to the mouth of the cave it was easily 25 degrees colder! It felt so good!

Once finished, the kids earned their badges and we learned of an additional Junior Ranger badge they could earn: “Cave Scientist.” So of course our kids wanted to do that one, too! (Those booklets were free)

While the kids were working on those, we attended a Ranger Led program on fossils where we got to actually touch many of the cave formations and fossils that we weren’t allowed to during the cave tour. So that was really fun and educational!

Kids completed their additional booklets and earned their Cave Scientist badge which was wooden – so extra special!

We left Mammoth Cave and headed to Sam’s on a hunt to buy Jaycie an actual mattress for her bunk in the RV. Now that she’s bigger (about my size… well actually taller than me!) the thin cushion mattress was uncomfortable. So we found the perfect sized mattress so she could sleep better! We headed home to re-do her bed, laundry, prep school, and make/eat dinner. Since it was a Wednesday, we also watch Cedarpoint Students which is always refreshing and encouraging to both Jaycie and I. Long but super fun day! Ready for the next adventures that await!