Day 4: Mammoth Cave and Saint Louis
We enjoyed the day at a leisurely pace, as we had booked the Domes and Dripstones Tour at Mammoth Cave for ten o’clock. This was the earliest time at which the specific tour would take place, and I felt quite partial to it because of how many stalagmites and stalactites we would see (in fact, the tour guide said that the tour would take us past 70% of the stalagmites and stalactites in the entirety of Mammoth Cave).
We departed
from our hotel with perhaps a little too much time to spare, but we felt it better
safe than sorry. As we took the elevator down to ground floor, the maintenance
worker turned to us with a deadpan expression and asked: “Why did the scarecrow
win a prize?” Guessing that this was the setup to a punchline, Kelly and I
professed ourselves ignorant and solicitous of his wisdom. “Because he was
out-standing in the field,” the worker answered himself. His stony gaze did not
change, nor did his monotonous delivery indicate that what we had heard was
indeed a joke. Kelly and I laughed awkwardly and prayed that the elevator doors
would open as fast as possible.
As we drove
to Mammoth Cave, we spotted a turkey standing to the right of the road not far
from the entrance. I have no photographic evidence of this, so I ask my readers
to take me at my word. Over these past few days, we have seen our fair share of
birds, mostly birds of prey hovering above the highways, some geese, and a
cardinal.
Once we
arrived at Mammoth Cave, we used the long wait to buy an America the Beautiful
Pass, which is an annual ticket to the USA’s federal recreation sites. The pass
cost us eighty dollars, which is a sum that pays for itself after about two or
three visits. We have not needed it yet, nor is it required at Mammoth Cave,
but it will come in handy once we are farther west. We would not be able to buy
it at Scotts Bluff, which is the first stop that requires tourists to have one.
We enjoyed
our tour of Mammoth Cave very much. Our guide was a no-nonsense Kentuckian, and
he handled his crowd of over a hundred people with ease. “Folks, they’re
rocks,” he explained calmly, “if you want to touch rocks, go feel the ones
outside.” “If you carved your name into the rock a hundred years ago, it would
be considered historical graffiti. Now, it’s a federal offense.”
The tour
took two hours and began with a descent through a shaft littered with wolf
spiders and cave crickets. The next part was quite dramatic, taking us down
winding steps that offered views of magnificent cave ceilings. The stalactites
and stalagmites came towards the end, and we stopped on the way multiple times
for the guide to give us information about the cave and its formation. He
likened the cave system to a bowl of spaghetti to explain how its 420 miles
(that we know of) could fit into the area of around 80 square miles. He also
did what is done on every cave tour – turned off the lights and told his
audience to be quiet and listen to the silence. “If you’re uncomfortable or
afraid of the dark,” he joked as the darkness enveloped us “just raise your
hands and I’ll turn the lights on.”
The tour guide also told us about white-nose syndrome, which is killing millions of bats across the USA. After the tour was finished and the busses took us back to where we departed, we stepped on mats that were supposed to disinfect our shoes and thus prevent the disease from spreading further.
Kelly had the presence of mind to remember that we had planned to eat at a KFC while in Kentucky, so we stopped by a roadside restaurant in Beaver Dam. Perhaps it was a mistake that neither of us ordered KFC’s iconic bucket, but we were not disappointed with our orders. I got a little bowl of mac and cheese, a big bowl of green beans, and we shared an order of fries, while Kelly ate a chicken burger. I found the fries satisfyingly crispy.
We entered Saint Louis towards the evening, leaving our things at the hotel before descending into the city for some quick sightseeing and dinner. It had been raining sporadically, so the Gateway Arch was doubled by a partial rainbow. I simply had to rub into Kelly’s face that its architect, Eero Saarinen, had designed Morse, my residential college at Yale. We got takeout from a Thai restaurant, imagining that this would be the last Asian food we would be able to get before entering the rural expanse of the Midwest.
We drove 356 miles today, bringing our total mileage to 1328.
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