appalachia day 2: mammoth cave

cave tour day! we donned our best hiking boots,

had a delicious kentucky breakfast, complete with biscuits and grits (oh, southern food, i LOVE you and would never survive you), got the kids sworn in as junior rangers,

and then had a little hike around the surface of this beautiful park before our scheduled 4 mile tour down below. 

and then it was time and we went down through the natural opening...

into huge cavernous open spaces. certainly the biggest cave rooms i have ever seen.

this cave is full of stories and names, and is over 400 miles long...

everyone loved it, no one got bored, and (most importantly) no one got lost.

and then we said goodbye to kentucky by taking a long a winding drive through the hills and backroads to get to the highways of tennesse, on our way to the great smoky mountains.