Magnificent Mammoth Caves

(Park City, KY: 29 April - 4 May) National Parks are great! Visiting Mammoth Caves National Park was just a thing to do because we have a camp here in Park City, KY. We like to be above ground better than underground, but this was interesting. We did it all. The first day at the Park we hiked all over the top of caves taking numerous trails around the Visitor Center and logging 7.8 miles on Joy's trusty pedometer. We saw wild turkey (but they wouldn't hold still to take a picture) and what we think was an Indigo Bunting bird which is one of our favorites. We were planning on going back the next day to do the underground tour, but it started raining Friday night and did not stop until late Sunday night! You may have heard about the flooding in/near Bowling Green KY and Nashville TN. We got over 12" of rain in a 48 hour period. So, we hunkered down in the RV and nearly went stir crazy. I mean non-stop rain for probably 50 hours!
So, today we did the rest of Mammoth Caves. We took a cave tour and learned that Mammoth Caves is the largest cave system in the world with over 396 miles of explored caves and an estimated 600 additional miles of unexplored caves. The "system" means they all interconnect which really is amazing. The are all naturally made over years of erosion by river water channeling into the sandstone and shale. We learned about sink-holes; above ground depressions that act as a downspout for water runoff and enter the caves many underground rivers. Before we had National Parks this was the 2nd most visited natural attraction (after Niagara Falls). People have been coming here to see the caves since the early 1800's. The tour related several interesting stories about creative uses of the caves; like for the making of saltpeter (a key ingredient in gun powder) around the time of the War of 1812 and a crazy idea to cure tuberculosis patients by housing them in the cave air. We hiked about 2 miles underground and then emerged to a gorgeous day. So, we hopped on the bikes and explored the southern end of the park. They built a beautiful bike trail on the bed of what had been the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The railroad served guests coming from the cities to the resort hotel at the Mammoth Caves (still operating). We were unsure what the rain might have done to the bike trail so we proceeded cautiously at first. We biked around 10 miles and made it back to the visitor center with only one fall. I didn't see a deep cut the rain had made in the path...about a foot across and 8 or so inches deep most of the way across the path. I braked too late and the front wheel hit the cut and fell...mostly on my feet though.
We were curious how high the Green River had risen because of the rain so after biking we hiked another mile or so to one of the places we had hiked a few days before. The water completely covered one of the boardwalk viewing areas. The spot we had walked to on Friday to look down on the river was about 500 yards below the closest place we could get to today. See pictures above. The third picture from the bottom is what the area looked like on Friday. The two pictures above it are after all the rain.
This place gets high marks from both of us. Recommend it as a "must do" if you are ever in the area.