Mammoth Cave National Park

Day four of our vacation was mine and Brian's favorite day.  We drove a little over an hour north of Nashville to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  I have been wanting to visit this park for some time.  It did not disappoint.  This place is Uh-Maz-Ing.  The Mammoth Cave system is the longest cave system in the world.  They have mapped out 400 miles of cave passageways, and still have not explored the whole thing.  Since we were making the trip all the way up there, we wanted to be sure that we got the most bang for our buck.  So, I reserved two 2-hour guided tours (4 hours total in the caves).  I was a little worried about how the kids would handle spending that much time below ground, but my worries were for naught.  After our last tour ended we passed a group getting ready to go down, and the kids asked if we could go back down with them.

When planning out which guided cave tours to take, I was overwhelmed with all of the different options.  Brian and I discussed which tours would be best considering the parts of the cave that we would like to see (cause you can't see it all) and the fact that we had two small children in tow.  We decided to go with one tour that began in the new entrance and one that began in the historic entrance.  Our first tour was the "Domes and Dripstones" tour.  We entered the cave through a winding staircase and proceeded 250 feet below the ground.  The "new" part of the cave is the part that has some stalagmites and stalactites, though not as many as in other caves that we've been through in the past.  The main attraction of this tour seemed to be the "Frozen Niagara" flowstone, which was pretty impressive.  The guide spoke a lot about how the cave was formed and answered all of our questions.  The bad news is that about half of our tour group was comprised of fourth graders on a field trip.  Those kids know they could ask some questions.  The most popular (and often repeated) question from the field trip kids was "What should I do if a bunch of bats attack me in the cave?"  These kids were obsessed with bats attacking them, and the guide kept telling them that there are no bats in this part of the cave.  That didn't stop them from asking, though.  In spite of the somewhat noisy company, the tour was great.  We were not attacked by bats, so that was a bonus.

We had about an hour and an half to kill between our first and second tours.  The second entered the caves through the "Historic Entrance"  Even though we were in the same cave system, the two areas that we toured could not have been more different.  I could not believe how massive the rooms were in this part of the cave.  It was overwhelming.  Think a room underground that is as about twice the size of a gymnasium- and that isn't even the largest room in the cave system.  I really wish that I could have captured the enormity of this cave on film.  But lighting underground is terrible and we couldn't use a flash.  We were just in awe.  The "Historic Tour" focused on the history of the cave, which was way more interesting than it sounds like it would be.  Our guide was great, and we had no field trip groups on this tour (hooray).

Sometimes we go places and make no plans to return because we feel like we've "been there and done that".  This is not one of those.  I really do think that we all could have done another walking tour and still not have been satisfied.

Out and About in Nashville

If you are a fan of country music, then Nashville is the place to be.  Unfortunately, we are not big country fans so Nashville was kind of "meh" for us.  We did enjoy walking around and seeing the sites, but I'm glad we didn't plan out more than one afternoon for doing this.  Our tour of Nashville began at the Visitor's Center- right beside the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We walked down "Honky Tonk Row" and found a little pizza place for lunch.

The one country music site that I actually did want to check out was the Ryman Auditorium  (aka The Mother Church of Country Music).  To me this venue is country music.  The Ryman was the original home of The Grand Ole Opry, and is still a much-used concert venue today.  On the day that we were there, they were setting up for a Josh Turner concert that very night.  We took the self-guided tour.  It was such a beautiful building.  I would love to see a concert here.  Anyway, we paid $10 to have the kids' picture made on the stage.  While we were trying to unzip Owen's jacket for the picture, his finger got cut by the zipper and it started to bleed a little.  The lady taking the pictures was so nice.  She went and got a band-aid for Owen.  He was crying a little, so she gave him a "Josh Turner" guitar pick.  I guess she had a few because of the concert that night.  Now Owen has no idea who Josh Turner is, but he was so proud of his guitar pick that he wanted to hang on to it himself and show it off.

It had been raining off and on all day, so after leaving the Ryman, we started to look for an indoor activity to do.  The man at the visitor's center had told us about the Tennessee State Museum- which he said was pretty good and free.  We decided to check it out.  It was pretty good (and free).  They had three floors of exhibits about the history of Tennessee.  My favorite thing was the old tobacco barn.  There was a little plate by the barn explaining how tobacco was strung and cured.  I was way more into this particular exhibit than the kids were.

 After leaving the downtown area, we drove to our hotel which was located in the vicinity of Opryland.  We ate supper at the Aquarium Restaurant.  This restaurant is owned by the same people who do the Rainforest Cafe.  This was the neatest place to eat.  As the name suggests, the restaurant is an aquarium.  There were over 600 fish swimming in a huge tank right next to our table.  The kids spent most of the time up next to the walls of the tank.  They only sat down long enough to gobble up their food, and then they headed right back up to the tank.  Our waitress was very knowledgeable about the different types of fish in the tank.  She even told us that the restaurant employees six marine biologists and a curator to take care of the marine life.  This was definitely a unique dining experience.  

The Parthenon

We slept in on day 3 and then drove about two hours north to Nashville, Tn.  Our first stop was the Parthenon.  Yes, the city of Nashville has a full-sized replica of the ancient Greek Parthenon- complete with gold statue of Athena.  I thought it was cool because the actual Parthenon is in ruins and is in Greece (thus making it very doubtful that I will ever actually see it).  This is a nice (and close) substitute.  I tried to explain the significance of this building to the kids, but all they remember is that this is where Percy Jackson fought the Hydra.  The kids have also taken an interest in parkour, and there were lots of "obstacles" in the area around the Parthenon for them to practice their skills.

Ruby Falls

After leaving the aquarium, we drove to see Ruby Falls.  Ruby Falls is a 145 foot natural waterfall that is located inside of a cave.  We traveled in an elevator about 260 feet below the surface and then hiked through a cave to the falls.  Along the way we saw many stalagmites, stalactites, and other formations.  The cave was small but well lit.  The guide said that we were lucky to be here on this day.  Due to the heavy rains the night before, the falls were  receiving more water than usual and were twice the normal size.  He said this only happens once or twice a year, so I guess it was good luck that we got to see Ruby Falls in all of its glory.  Ruby Falls was lots of fun.  The kids thought it was cool to see a waterfall inside of a cave.  

Tennessee Aquarium

 As the forecast predicted, Tuesday was a rainy day.  Fortunately, we had enough indoor things to do to keep us occupied.  We started our day at the Tennessee Aquarium.  What makes the Tennessee Aquarium so good is that it is located in two separate buildings- one for freshwater and one for saltwater animals.  In my opinion, the freshwater building is the nicer one- so we went here first.  We saw all sorts of fish, otters, alligators, frogs, and other creatures.  There was a freshwater touch tank where the kids got to touch the sturgeons.  The otters were very active and were also a favorite.

 After finishing up at the freshwater building, we took a lunch break at the River City Brewing Company- a favorite from our previous trip to Chattanooga- and then returned to explore the saltwater building.  There were also touch tanks in the saltwater building.  The kids enjoyed getting hands-on with the rays and other sorted fish.  The saltwater building contained lots of species of marine life- including penguins, sharks, jellyfish, and even a butterfly garden .  This is a great aquarium, and we enjoyed our visit.

Cloudland Canyon

 Cloudland Canyon State Park has to be the most beautiful state park in Georgia.  I was amazed at the beauty I saw.  After leaving Rock City, we drove 30 minutes to this park.  It was not originally in the plan to do either this or Rock City on the first day, but the weather was going to be bad the rest of the week, and I wanted to make sure that we got all of the outside stuff done on the one day that we knew it would be good weather.  Unfortunately, that meant we had to shorten our hike at Cloudland Canyon.  Instead of doing the 5 mile West Rim hike, we ended up doing the 2 mile Waterfalls hike.  The kids were not sad at all about this because they like waterfalls.  There were several falls in the park, but the one that we visited was Hemlock Falls.  It was a a lovely waterfall, and the trail down was nice.  It was the same trail back up, and it was much tougher journey up than down.  The kids still did well with it, though- they left Brian and I in a cloud of dust.  This park is in the extreme northwest of Georgia, so I don't know that I'll ever make it back this way.  But, if I do I would definitely be interested in checking out some of the other trails in the park.

See Rock City

We woke up super early on Monday morning and drove six hours to Chattanooga, Tn.  Brian and I first visited Chattanooga back in 2007 when Olivia was just a few months old.  We really enjoyed our visit to that city and have been wanting to go back ever since.  We arrived in Chattanooga shortly after lunch and headed straight to Rock City.  Rock City is a park on Lookout Mountain that has a path through large, naturally occurring boulders.  The path winds through the rocks and leads up to "Lover's Leap", which offers views of seven states.  It was pretty foggy on the day that we went, so we probably only saw about two states.  It was still a good view.  Our kids LOVE hiking, and this was the first of many hikes that we did during the week.  Both kids said that going to Rock City was their favorite thing that we did on our whole vacation, so I guess that means it was a hit.