Mammoth Cave & New River Gorge

Mammoth Cave and New River Gorge

April 29: We woke up early, had good bread from Whole Foods for breakfast, packed up, and left the T.O. Fuller State Park in Memphis. Now we are heading to Mammoth Cave National Park. We arrived at Mammoth Cave around 2 PM, went to the Visitor Center and figured out how to plan our visit. And then drove the short mile to the Mammoth Cave Campground, which was primitive with no hook ups. There was a bathroom in the campground and pay showers 1/4 mile down the road at the camp store.

A nice 9 mile Railroad Bike and Hike Trail that travels through the  campground going all the way to the small town of Park City. We rode about 6 miles on the rough gravel path and then rode back on the road. Took a detour toward Brownsville and then came back. We saw 4-5 all turkeys and two deer on our ride. It was thundering around us and started raining, but wasn’t too bad. We arrived back at the campsite a little bit before 6 PM, sat outside and drank beer, and then went inside as it started to downpour. We had kale and Just Eggs for dinner, took a bucket bath in the van, and listened to a mediocre audiobook that I had downloaded. The campsite is in a beautiful wooded spot with very few people here and not many mosquitoes. Other than the downpour, this is a really nice campground.

April 30: Today was a really nice day! Our Grand Avenue Cave Tour didn't start until 10:15 AM so we at a leisurely breakfast and then drove down to the Green River Ferry. The ferry wasn’t working, but it was really cool to see how it crosses the river. And there was a nearby Echo River Spring Loop Trail, a scenic 1 mile walk where we saw two turkeys, one of which was making a lot of noise. We also heard a lot of other really cool birds, including a Tennesse Warbler, Wood Thrush, Acadian Flycatcher, Tufted Titmouse, amont others (thanks to Cornell's Merlin App). 

After the short walk, we drove back to the Visitor Center and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat as an early lunch because the tour is four hours with no food allowed. They did offer two bathroom breaks though For the tour, it was pretty big with 41 people on it. We took a bus down to the Carmichael Entrance. The cave system is really enormous, covering over 426 known miles. We walked four of those, up and down hills. Rather than having stalagmites and stalactites through most of it, the Mammoth cave system is dry and had mostly gypsum crystals. Only the last room had magnificent stalagmites, stalactites, and drapery in the "frozen Niagara" area. In the caves, there were bats that we did not see, but there were cave crickets that we did see. We could’ve just gone down to our basement for that. When we came out, we had to walk across squishy mats to clean our shoes to remove any white-nose fungus that kills bats. Then we took a quick visit into the lodge, got a shot of espresso, then drove the van back to our site for a chickpea lunch. 

Being in Kentucky and near the Bourbon Trail, we had wanted to visit a distillery in the area. The closest one was Balance Distilling Company, a family owed distillery in a really cool barn with horses, alpacas, and cows on the land. We tasted their moonshine, bourbon, and rum, purchasing the spicy moonshine and the rum aged in bourbon barrels. Then we fed the horses and tried to feed the alpacas, but they wanted nothing to do with us. We took the scenic route back to the campground, which was really pretty through Kentucky farmland. Arriving back at the campground, we drank some beer, took showers in the van, had a soy curl and cabbage dinner, and hung out and listened to our audio book. Also, our house battery is really running out quickly so we need to get a new one when we return home. 

We liked Mammoth Cave quite a bit, particularly as the campground was nearly empty. There is biking and hiking from the campground and you can walk to the Visitor Center as well. The pace of our visit was really nice, one that we will try to emulate in the future. Around 9:30 PM we heard a chorus of barred owls talking to each other, which was really cool. And we could see a bit of the moon and some stars, but too many trees blocked our way to see the full night sky. 

May 1: We got up early, had breakfast, headed to the dump station, before traveling to West Virginia, our last stop on this six week trip. Packing up is really easy when you don’t have any hook ups. Kentucky and West Virginia are very pretty, with lots of rolling hills. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road, parking in the lot of a local hotel. Because the whole ride was about five hours, we had time when we arrived at New River Gorge National Park to go to the Canyon Ridge Visitor Center and drive through downtown Fayetteville. Stopping at the Visitor Center was really helpful because they gave us a lot of information to plan out our day for tomorrow. And the view of the gorge from the was pretty spectacular! Everything seems to be really close to each other here, so we drove to Rifrafters Campground. Our site (34) backed into the woods and had a nice little deck with a picnic table. It was was isolated from other parts of the campground which made it a really nice spot, even though we had about a five minute walk to the very new and clean shower room. Having stopped at a Dollar General earlier to pick up some V8 and club soda, we drank Bloody Mary’s using our new spicy moonshine. Yum! We had a simple salad and burgers for dinner and then just hung out. The Wi-Fi and cell service at the campground were excellent so it was really nice to just hang out. After dinner, it started raining so we were inside for most of the evening. But it wasn't too hot which was a nice change the previous days.

May 2: We woke up and had French toast for breakfast. Having planned our day the night before, we started with a really nice 3.2 mile hike on the Endless Wall Trail to the Diamond Overlook. The trail made a nice loop with very few people on the trail. And the views were spectacular! Then we drove the Fayette Station Road Tour, while listening to the audio tour and eating lunch in the van. The tour took us down to the bottom of the gorge and the old bridge and then ended up close to Oak Hill where we were able to fill up our propane tank at Keith’s Propane. After about four weeks, our propane tank was only down about a half a tank, so we were pretty pleased with not having used very much. From Oak Hill, we headed over to the Thurmond Historic District, which is an old company mining and railroad town. It is really a ghost town although a Ranger told us that three people still live there. It was really cool to visit. Then we drove over to the Stonecliff Beach Campground to take a very short walk along the river. We thought we’d be walking closer to the river, but weren’t so we decided to turn around and head back into Fayetteville. On the way we stopped at New Roots Community Farm on the outskirts of Fayetteville to drop off our compost. New Roots is a really cool CSA with a fun little store. They actually sold vegan ice cream there. Parking in downtown Fayetteville, we walked around, checked out some vintage stores and some outdoor stores. The town was setting up for First Friday, which looked like fun, but we headed back to the campground for our wonderful Bloody Mary’s, to take a shower, and to hang out in the woods.

May 3: We woke up early, had toast and yogurt for breakfast, dumped the tanks, and headed home. The drive home took about 8 hours, allowing us to arrive at 5 PM without any troubles. Despite our challenges with the toilet, being stranded in Quartzite, and me losing my wallet, this was a great trip overall!