... last christmas my present to liz was a wanderabout of her choosing ... "dad, i want to go down in a cave" ... easy choice, the longest cave system in the world, mammoth cave in kentucky ... after 850 miles on the road, we stopped for a break at jon's house in columbus ... while there we visited the "field of corn" and enjoyed a nice lunch during a visit to the downtown market ...
... liz has discovered "roadside america," so we had to stop ...
... before the mid-day heat and humidity we toured the serpentine mound ... we learned that the archeologists have recently discovered that the ancient people "erased" a fourth loop ... there're all sort of fancy theories explaining this, but we think that it was simply because that loop was too close to the edge of the ravine and erosion caused it to be too difficult to maintain ... then again, the "ancient aliens" explanation might also be true ...
... we paused in lexington to play a round of "bible mini-golf" ... "old testament miracles" for us ... needless to say, i smote liz ... !!! ...
... liz has a rather unusual putting stance ...
... near the translvannia university campus we drove through a neighborhood of cleverly decorated buildings ... (the shots that have a film border were taken and processed using my cell phone camera and snapseed editor) ...
... very, very strange ...
... at mammoth cave we left the 90°f temps and 90% humidity behind and descended through the original entrance into a bliss inducing 55°f natural air conditioning ...
... we did three underground tours, but here i'll just sort of run 'em together ... during the two-hour "historical" tour we navigated some extremely confining passages ...
... many, many years ago it was decided that spending a long period of time living in mammoth cave would be beneficial to those afflicted with tuberculosis (then called "consumption," which is a much more descriptive name) ... in one of the little underground houses the builders put in a window ... ??? ... go figure ...
... and, as you may have already surmised, living in the damp cold air of the cave was not at all good for those with a lung disease ... this is the slab where they laid out those who weren't cured—eventually every single one of them got to recline on this stone ...
... we ran into some of the local denizens ... creepy ...
... in the way olden days, even before the great "cave wars," visitors would use candles or lanterns to smoke their names into the ceiling ... the guides, who were charged with cleaning up the paths, would offer up to their guests, "you know, you could also pile some stones to commemorate your visit" ... here is the monument to kentucky, all other somehow mysteriously kept falling apart ...
... in one of our tours we descended a staircase crammed into a massive hole such as these ... many of them were 80-100' deep ...
... there are five levels to the cave system, the bottom of which, being currently the active water table, is still in the formation stage ... if you look very close you can see the water at the bottom of this shaft ...
... liz thoroughly enjoyed the tours, especially since this is a place where not being tall is an advantage—believe me, my head knows ...
... while chatting about how proud of ourselves we were for having negotiated the subterranean depths we noticed this couple—we stopped our bragging ...
... our last visit was the "lantern tour" ...
... our guide was a well-seasoned (read that, "older") man from kentucky ... we were mesmerized by the the stories and tales he related ... and, in all of it, by itself his accent alone was worth the price of admission ... i mean, when someone from kentucky says "air"—well, i'm not sure it's possible to spell it ...
... "watch your head" on the left, to the right is "i'm melting" ...
... just watching the children listen to him was as good a part of the tour as anything else ...
... another of those who live in the cave ... all of the underground pictures, by the way, were taken at i.s.o. 50-some thousand ... f/stop was either f/1.8 or f/1.4, depending on the lens, and the shutter speed was as low as 1/4-second ... again, for those who complain, "oh, dear, at high i.s.o. my digital camera's sensor exhibits just way too much noise," well, duh ... dig out an old nikon or canon or whatever, go buy some "high speed" film, and give this place a try ... !!! ...
... on the way home we stopped in new york so liz could dig for "herkimer diamonds" ... (is something she loves doing—go figure this, too) ...
... four and one-half hours later, we'd found several nice stones and my hands felt like i'd been on a louisiana roadside chain gang ...
... driving along the new york throughway we were chased by a "possible tornadoes" cloud ...
... what an absolutely wonderful wanderabout we shared ... merry christmas liz ... and, for me, considering where i was last year this time, happy new year, patrick ...