It is a unique experience to go somewhere during a pandemic. I have been very concerned about my child getting sick and ending up hospitalized– because we were there a year ago. You can’t get much more distant than tent camping and visiting a massive national park, so we went, and I am so glad that we did.
Let me just start by sharing the precautions that they are currently taking. The information desk is outside. The rangers are under a small canopy to answer questions, hand out maps, and give junior ranger workbooks and badges. Should you need to go inside, traffic is one way. Everything is incredibly clean. They even moved a gift shop outdoors. There is plenty of open air. They only have one cave tour open, and they altered the route because the usual route didn’t have enough air flow to be safe during this time. So, rest assured.
Scott and I have been talking for some time about wanting to visit all of the National Parks. We want to visit as many as we can while the kids are still with us, and after they are grown I hope we continue to explore. It’s something we have always loved. He suggested that we go camp and visit the closest park to us, which is Mammoth Cave National Park. We left on Saturday and came home on Monday.
The entire park was so beautiful. Yes, there are MILES of beautiful cave to explore. But, they have also preserved thousands of acres of forest. There are places to camp and trails to hike. It rained on us the whole weekend. In the forest, there are so many trees that you don’t get as wet as you would expect.
We signed up to to the Extended Cave Tour. Like I said, everything was different for us. It is usually a guided tour. For safety reasons, that was not the case this time. They did have rangers all throughout the cave off of the path that would explain things to you and answer questions. They also limited it to groups of fifty for each tour. We didn’t get to see everything that I was looking forward to, but that is just incentive to go back!
The entrance and exit were so beautiful. You could immediately feel the cool cave air as soon as you hit the top of the steps. The cave is consistently in the 50s, which was such a nice relief from the heat and humidity. Pack a jacket! Your eyes adjust to the darkness and you can see every detail of the cave. I had to laugh when I looked through my pictures. So many of them were just black photos, and I wasn’t sure what I could see at the moment. I do know that I said “wow” a lot. I’m so glad that we did it!
There were so many trails to hike. Since we were only there for one full day, we didn’t get to do very much at all. There are lots of hills. I think my fitbit said I ended up doing 36 floors that day between the cave and the short trail. I had over 16,000 steps. The kids did great!
Most of the parks do a Junior Ranger program. Once we set up camp on Saturday, we went to the park and picked up the workbooks for the kids to do. For this program, the kids had to earn “bat points” based upon their age. Each page was worth a certain amount of bat points. Once they had earned enough, they could go back and get their junior ranger badges. We all learned so much from these books!
I am so passionate about our National Parks. I was fortunate enough to visit several of them when I was younger. Their efforts to conserve nature and history are so good. They offer so many resources for educators. They are passionate about getting kids outdoors. There is so much to learn! We were looking at where to go next while traveling home. This book has been so good for planning. (I didn’t get my passport stamp and am so sad.)
I’ll share about where we camped tomorrow!