Howdy folks,
I've been on the road for several days now, and thought it would be time for an update. On my first day, I got up at the crack of dawn and drove from DC out to Winchester, Virginia, where my brother lives, and had breakfast with him and his family. After saying goodbye to my passel of nieces, nephews, and the dogs Cubby and Slick, I hit the road proper. Down the Shenandoah Valley on I-81, then west on I-64 across the wide part of West Virginia. This was the Valley and Ridge province, and it's hell on the gas mileage. I dropped from 54 mpg to 53.5 by the time I got out the Allegheny Plateaus. I also saw the most expensive gas I've seen so far: $4.75 a gallon for regular unleaded. (The lowest I've seen is $3.78.)
After crossing the border into Kentucky, I deviated to the south, and around 8pm EST (7pm CST), I pulled into Mammoth Cave National Park. I got a campsite, set up the tent, and popped a bottle of homebrew. (I brought my last six bottles of Whatchagot Ale with me.) There was a racket coming from the trees: a 17-year cicada emergence was in progress, and the seething insects pulsated as they coordinated their shrill call: positively primordial. For my evening's entertainment, I attended the Park Service's "campfire" program. (Today, "campfire" means "PowerPoint slideshow," which has its advantages and its disadvantages.) It was a hot and humid night's sleep.
The next morning, I got up and made some coffee. After breaking camp, I took a hike down to the "River Styx," an emergent spring where a stream of water flows out of Mammoth Cave and into the Green River (the same Green River, by the way,
of John Prine fame). I also passed one of the many entrances to the Mammoth Cave system, and felt an amazing cool breeze oozing out of the hole and flowing down a classic solution valley towards the Green River. At 10am, my tour of the cave began. Mammoth offers multiple tours of different parts of the cave at different activity levels. I signed up for the gnarliest one on offer: the so-called "Wild Cave" tour. (Tuff Cookie presciently
recommended this to me, though I had in fact reserved it a couple of weeks ago.) The Wild Cave tour is different from most Mammoth tours because it's real caving, with crawling and mud and tight squeezes, and climbing skills. You've got to be reasonably fit and trim for the Wild Cave tour to work. Joining me where 11 other people with various backgrounds, including seven from the ESPN auto racing circuit. They had a fun, jocular attitude, with a lot of mutual joshing and teasing.
I was struck by a few things about Mammoth: (1) It's really big. But that's why we bother going there, and why it's a national park (it's the longest cave system in the world), so this is no big insight. (2) It's got a lot of gypsum in it. In many places, "flowers" of gypsum crystals sprout from the ceiling and walls. I asked, where's the sulfur coming from? The guides said there was a pyrite rich layer above, which was being leached by rainwater. (3) There's not a lot of stalactites in Mammoth. I've spent a lot of time in caves in West Virginia, and there are many places in them where it's nothing but stalactites. I'm not sure what's up with that, but it was noteworthy to me. (4) There are some HUGE rooms in Mammoth, with ceilings that are easily five or six stories tall. Very impressive; cathedral-like. (5) Mammoth Cave has been a tourist destination for a LONG time. People have been trekking to this destination long before there was a road network to bring them there. Back in the day (late 1700s and early 1800s), people arrived via the river rather than overland. Some of the cave was developed early on to support these visitors. Nowadays, the Park Service continues this tradition with paved walkways, lighting, and even a subterranean cafe in "sacrifice" areas of the cave. My tour passed in and out of these areas throughout our six-hour expedition.
After exiting the cool cave back into the Kentucky afternoon heat, I took a shower (the best $2 I've spent so far on the trip!) and popped into the Prius for some more driving. I headed north again, crossing briefly into Indiana, and then Illinois. I spent the night at a hotel near Mt. Vernon, Illinois. Yesterday morning, I got up and drove west all day, back on I-64 and then on I-70. I crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and then crossed Missouri. Into Kansas after that: it wasn't nearly as flat as I remembered it. Part of the insight into Kansas' topography was courtesy of the Prius, which showed me (via the mpg indicator) when I was going uphill and down. A strong headwind lowered my fuel efficiency significantly, dropping it down to 52.7 mpg by day's end. There's a lot of wind out here! I was also struck by the clouds: such crazy, distinctive forms. I can see how if you were growing up here, you could get into meteorology big time. I saw a massive storm system to my south, and the local NPR affiliate was broadcasting storm warnings and tornado watches all afternoon.
I decided to stop for the night in Hays, Kansas, home of fellow geoblogger
Ron Schott. As it turns out, Ron is not actually in town this week, but I may be able to hook up with him for some Kansas chalk scouting on my way back east in late July. But there's a lot to do in Hays. For dinner, I went to the
Lb. Brewing Company, a craft brewery and brewpub downtown. I got a sampler of eight (small glasses) of their various beers, and enjoyed them all. Most unusual was a lemon beer which tasted a lot like lemonade. After dinner (reading
Oceans of Kansas with my turkey panini), I watched another massive storm system pass to the north, with towering gray clouds and sporadic pulses of lightning. Wow.
This morning, I'm off for a run (need to stretch those legs!) and then to the
Sternberg Museum of Natural History here in Hays (an affiliate of Ron's university, Fort Hays State University). The Sternberg has a reputation as having awesome fossils from the area's sedimentary strata laid down in the Western Interior Seaway. Looking forward to it.
Next stop: Denver, hopefully by 7pm so I can attend the "
Geography Goes Digital" event at the
Denver Museum of Nature and Science. More later...
Labels: caves, kansas, kentucky, prius, travel
