Mammoth Cave National Park

I turned to Keith in the middle of cave tour and said “wow, this cave is huge”. He said “Taryn it is called Mammoth Cave”. Oh yeh! It is the biggest cave I’ve ever been in, which is great for me b/c I didn’t feel so claustrophobic…that was until we went through “tall man’s misery” and “fat man’s misery”. You had to walk hunched over for couple hundred yards and then squeeze through this long skinny passage. This path brought you to another level of the cave, to more huge rooms. I made it through with deep breathing techniques. Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world, was very different from any other cave we’d been in. It was missing all of the normal cave features, crystals, spars, stalactites, stalagmites…all because it was a dry cave, no water. This cave also had a mine in it where they obtained saltpeter in the early 1800's to mix with black gun powder. This was the only place in the US to obtain saltpeter since all imports had stopped during the War of 1812. Would we still be the US if they didn’t mine this important chemical from the caves? Thought to think on.

Only a few pictures...cave pictures never come out well.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=nvgkyr9.7t4p7qgl&Uy=-7xy6ml&Ux=0