Since last year took us all the way to the West coast for our family vacation, this time, we opted to head in the other direction. The original plan would have had us make it all the way to the East coast to hit North Carolina, but Brooke and I already went to San Juan earlier in the year and we had the foundation of our house re-done, so we scaled back plans just a tad.
Calvin was in Columbia with my parents for the week at an art camp, so we loaded things up on a Friday and took off to pick him up before heading out. We had decided to stay in Evansville, IN for the night because that got us closer to our destination, but would also set us up to see Mammoth Cave that next morning. The drive to Evansville was mostly uneventful, and we found Turoni’s Pizza and Brewing for dinner, so at least I was happy. While we were there, a magician was going from table to table doing some tricks, so we got a kick out of the dinnertime entertainment!
The next morning, we had an appointment at Mammoth Cave, but only had about 2 hrs of driving to get from Evansville to get to the national park. There were multiple tour options available, but we stuck with a cave tour that would last long enough but not too long because we were still making the rest of the journey that afternoon. There were some cool lantern-light tours we could have done, but those take around 4 hours and we didn’t have that kind of time!
The facilities at Mammoth Cave were pretty good, with a big gift shop and ticket area. There was also a set of exhibits talking about geology and the various organisms one could find in the cave. Apparently, Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world, clocking in at 426 miles (and that number keeps changing as more areas are discovered).
There were definitely impressive aspects about Mammoth Cave, among them the size of the open spaces. Of course, there were definitely areas that got pretty narrow, and I absolutely bumped my head a few times during the tour. We were a part of a relatively large tour group, so it felt kind of slow getting through aspects of it, but I don’t think we got the sense that there were a lot of stairs, or climbing over boulders, or anything like that. The tour lasted for an hour and a half, but I don’t think we left it feeling tired or anything. It was very hot and humid outside, though, so we were glad we were at least wearing jackets, because there were plenty of other folks in there that looked pretty cold!
If I’m going to make comparisons (which I do…), I would say that Mammoth Cave was unimpressive in the “rock formation” department. There were things to see, but really, it just felt like we were walking through big, open spaces under the ground. This picture above represents perhaps the only traditional rock formation that I’d expect to see in a cave in Missouri. I know that’s just representative of the geological differences between caves in Kentucky vs Missouri, but still, I was surprised that there weren’t more things to see like we saw at Meramec Caverns in 2020.
After we were done at Mammoth Cave, we booked it to our destination for the next few days in West Virginia, but we didn’t get there until well after the kids’ (or Brooke’s) bedtime. We were in Eastern Time by this point, but it was pretty close to midnight by the time we got there and got settled.
The next morning, we were able to survey our surroundings a bit better! Brooke found a few houses between Airbnb and Vrbo that were (on a map…) centrally located to various outdoorsy things in the Appalachian Mountains, and she let the kids determine which of the houses we would stay in.
Of course, when we let the kids make that kind of decision, they tend to make really weird choices, so I was a bit apprehensive about this decision, but once we got there, it was actually fine! The house was down a gravel road that went past a few other properties, and this house was at the end of that line. It had 6 bedrooms and, as you can see above, it had been added onto at least a few times over the years. The kids liked it because of the number of bedrooms, and it also came with a hot tub (pictured on the front porch above).
Still, the house was pretty far from most things. There was a grocery store “in town” a good 30 minutes away, but going anywhere from this house definitely had to take time, no matter what we did.
We couldn’t argue with the view, though! It was beautiful there! There was a small creek running past, as well as a few outbuildings that were dilapidated to the point that the owners said “uh, don’t go in there…”
Later that morning, we went to check out the “highest point in West Virginia,” that just so happened to be located relatively close to the house. It was something to get us out to see what the surrounding area looks like in the daytime, but that wouldn’t overwhelm us on the first day out there. Also, this particular “hike” was less than a mile long, so it wasn’t a huge ask of the kids.
There was an observation tower at the top of the “highest point in West Virginia,” so we climbed up there, but the tree line was actually relatively close to the top of the tower, so while we got a decent view, it wasn’t completely unobstructed. After that, we walked around a bit more on the trail that was up there, but there really wasn’t much else up there to see.
After that, we went to the closest town, Franklin, WV, to get lunch at one of the few restaurants in town, AGK Italian Restaurant & Pizzaria, which was right next to T&K Market so we could load up on groceries for the next few days. For the rest of Sunday, we mostly hung out around the house!