My Daily Commute

Every day when I drive to Bandy Creek Visitor Center I go down, down, down to Leatherwood Bridge, cross the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, and then go up, up, up to the other side. I decided I had better get some pictures of the gorgeous views along my commute! The easiest place to do that is from the bridge itself, which has a wide shoulder that I was able to park on and get some pictures upstream and downstream. I did this twice - once at around 10 a.m. yesterday morning, and again today on the way home after work, so as to get the morning and evening lighting. I also stopped at the East Rim overlook, since it's been a while and I wanted to get another look before the colors start changing.

Here are the mid-morning pictures.

This is looking downstream, towards Angel Falls. That old bridge used to be the main one! It's to the right as I'm driving to work.

Camouflage Fail

Just a tip - if you ever get reincarnated as a Walking Stick insect, you will not utilize your natural camouflage effectively by trying to hide on a stainless steel drinking fountain.

Angel Falls

This week it was neither overpoweringly hot, nor about to thunderstorm, so I finally went hiking again! I walked the Angel Falls Rapids trail - the full two miles this time, all the way out to the rapids. I finally saw one of the places people ask about the most! I also saw, not only some new wildflowers, but the fruits of some of the flowers I saw last time I walked this trail in late May.

I saw a lot of yellow flowers. Yellow seems to be the default color at this time of year, late summer getting into early fall. Yellow and white and sometimes purple. This could be a black-eyed Susan, but as I've mentioned before, there are just too many similar-shaped yellow flowers for me to be able to say.

Most of the trail had view like this - above the river, with glimpses of the water through the trees.

Going Back Down - Day 2 at Mammoth Cave

My second tour at Mammoth Cave was the 9:30 a.m. "Domes and Dripstones" tour, which goes through a larger section of cave formations. This also covered the main section that I would have seen on my tour last night - I still got to see it, just didn't get to use my flash.

I got there in plenty of time, so went back into the visitor center to take a few more pictures that I regretted not taking yesterday.

I'm actually going to transcribe the first sign, which turned out quite blurry for some reason.

"THE WORLD'S LONGEST CAVE

Welcome to Mammoth Cave National Park.

With over 400 miles of surveyed passages, the Mammoth Cave landscape shelters a long and complex underground labyrinth. The mysteries of this amazing natural laboratory have inspired and sustained human discovery for thousands of years.

This cave system is truly one of the natural wonders of the world. You are invited to explore the underground grandeur of Mammoth Cave National Park!

The railing continues off into the distance...

Going Underground at Mammoth Cave

Among other things, I have been planning for a while to make a trip to Mammoth Cave National Park, which is only a couple of hours' drive away. I have been researching it, comparing the descriptions of the different cave tours, and I finally committed to going this week! I actually left after work Sunday so that I could make the drive, get to the motel and already be just a few miles away and be able to take an earlier tour. I was hoping to do one in the morning and a second one in the evening, but the later tour was fully booked by the time I went to make a reservation online. Still, it worked out pretty well.

The drive out here was beautiful, and I managed not to get lost. The directions I wrote out for myself were accurate, and all the roads were where they were supposed to be! I stopped for supper a little more than halfway there, to give myself a break from driving - since I could tell it was going to get dark before I got there anyway.

This morning I got up and made it out to Mammoth in plenty of time - it was only a few miles away. The tour was to start at 11:30 so I had plenty of time to look around in the visitor center.

A monster or a king?

There was an enormous moth on the porch of the visitor center this morning. Unlike the graceful luna moth, this looked more like a muppet, covered with bright orange and yellow fluff! It did not move at all, so we kept pointing it out to visitors as they were coming and going.

I've seen some unusual moths this summer, but this one looked truly alien. When I put in a google search for "big orange moth", it was the first thing on the list. I was a little surprised to see the name - "Regal Moth", or "Royal Walnut Moth". I guess all that fuzz is actually a crown!

This is approximately life size.

Something Big Has Been Here

There is a healthy population of black bears in the Big South Fork. For the most part they don't cause problems in the park - we make sure all campers know to lock up their food when they're not around, and to use the bear-proof trash cans. Because the dorm is also park property, we also have the same bear-proof trash cans.

Those were tested recently.

One of the maintenance people came in the visitor center the other day and was talking with us, and mentioned to me that there was a bear print on the back of the trash can at the dorm - they noticed it when they came to collect the trash. When I got home I made sure to check it out.