Kentucky to North Carolina

I'm finally delivering the Mammoth Cave photos as promised.  We spent over 4 hours underground on the Grand Avenue tour, covering about 4 miles of tunnels and even stopping for lunch in the snowball room cafeteria about a mile in.  The caves are a very old, dried up river bed where you can see the changes in how the water flow shaped the channel: some were wide, room size caves and others were slot canyons that were very narrow and tall.  The very end of the tour brought us through a more damp area so stalactites grew from the ceiling in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  We even saw a few bats flitting around and lots of cave crickets too!  Our tour was pretty tame, but they did show us where some of the more advanced caving tours go, including one tiny little hole that you crawl through to get into another area.  I think I started to hyperventilate just looking at it; clearly that expedition is not for me.  Here are the pics:

First part of the tour

Snowball Room underground cafeteria

Stalactites

We emerged from underground to a beautiful, sunny Kentucky day and wound our way over to a free campsite (thanks Army Corps of Engineers!) right along a nice river.  Nevermind that we were on the backside of a HUGE dam with warning alarms posted throughout the campground.  Yikes!

Unfortunately we both woke up feeling a little groggy the next morning.  Headache and a sore throat for me.  I'm convinced it was the dank cave air--one more reason that I don't belong in caves.  We took our time heading out and drove south to Nashville for a drive-by tour of the Grand Old Opry and a picnic lunch nearby in a nice park.  I was not feeling well enough to deal with anything else so we kept moving back east to our campsite for the night at a free spot along a lake near Cookeville, TN.  Thunder and heavy rain moved in during the night and stuck around the whole next day while we drove all the way to Asheville, NC.  We've been in and around Asheville since then, camping in the Pisgah National Forest.  We checked out the downtown area on Friday in the cold rain and even stayed for dinner in town at a great little pub.  Thanks Memere for the Happy Meal!  

The rains blew out of town, but the winds stayed put Saturday so it was too cold for me to climb.  We scouted out the climbing area instead.  Such a cool rock!

It's still fall down here!

Looking Glass Rock Nose Area

This was our "Blaze Orange"

We also checked out Sliding Rock that people use as a water slide in summer.  Looks like fun, but way too cold now! 

Looking Glass Falls.  Would be a great shower in summer!

We were quite studious for the afternoon.  We found a library nearby where I got a couple job applications started and Curtis worked on his continuing education for his P.E.  There was a Halloween Fest going on in town with a costume parade and a bunch of other fun activities too.  That may be the only time I see someone dressed as Frankenstein's bride in a library.

We finally got to climb yesterday.  We waited for the afternoon sun to hit the rock and then climbed 4 pitches up to the top and rappelled down just as it was getting dark and chilly.  

Up the Nose

View from the top

Rappelling down

We just finished our laundry and are going to restock our pantry before taking a drive through the Smokies and then south to Alabama for more climbing (and hopefully warmer weather).  I'm counting down to Florida sun and beaches!