Vacation Recap the Third, Being an Account of our Adventures in Kentucky Entitled:
It’s that Friendly!
Mom and I set out for Kentucky fairly early, having gotten most things ready and packed the night before. The only thing we really had to wait for was picking up the rental car at the airport. We’d reserved an economy model, and the website had said we’d probably get an Aveo, just like the car that Dino and I just recently bought. But when we got to the airport, the girl who helped us said she had no idea why the website said that, since they didn’t have any Aveos in their fleet at all. Not only that, but even though we’d reserved an economy class car, they’d rented them all, so she upgraded us for free (yay!) into a standard class. Hence, we ended up with a Saturn.
The drive down to Lexington, about 10 hours, was pretty uneventful, except for the traffic around Cincinnati, which had us stopped on the highway for awhile. And I was all excited to go over the Ohio River and managed to get pictures of the neat iron bridge that we crossed on. Oddly enough, even though Mother and I are both intelligent and fairly logical people, we could not figure out the light controls on the Saturn at first. Late afternoon found us stopped at a gas station off an exit somewhere, me standing out in front of the car telling Mom what lights were coming on and off as she switched the controls. Though I’d always been fairly impressed with Saturns, the dash controls in this model in particular were very non-intuitive. And the rental company hadn’t left the operator’s manual in the glove compartment, so we couldn’t even look up what we didn’t know! In fact, we never did figure out what the “TW” button was supposed to do. Talk about feeling like an idiot…
We were heading to Lexington to attend BreyerFest. For those of you who don’t know what BreyerFest is (and that would probably be just about all of you…), it is an annual convention for people who collect Breyer Horses. Those are model horses made of hard plastic, usually very well modeled and realistic-looking, although they do occasionally release special editions with funky colors or patterns for holidays and whatnot. My Mother has been collecting these things since she was a little girl and she currently has probably close to 300 of them (her apartment is stuffed full!). I used to play with her collection when I was young, and before going to BreyerFest I only actually owned about 3 myself. But my Mother loves them, and she’d always wanted to go to a BreyerFest, see what it was all about, and have the opportunity to get some of the very exclusive edition horses that one can only get at the Fest. Since it was important to her, and something she really loves, I agreed to go with her this summer.
Even though she’d responded early to make her reservations and such, the main hotel that everyone for BreyerFest was staying at in Lexington was already full, so Mom had to make reservations at a different hotel up the street. The Four Points Sheridan. It was a very nice place, actually. For the most part. There were a couple problems, like the fact that Mom had to call down to the desk for an extra pillow twice before they finally brought her one, and our toilet wouldn’t flush one of the evenings we were there, so we had to call them to send someone to fix it. But it was clean and comfortable and apparently much nicer than the hotel across the street, of which we heard complaints from another BreyerFest attendee. And our hotel was just up the way from a Cracker Barrel restaurant, which was a huge plus. We ate there every day, and on several of the days more often than once. They were low carb friendly and their turnip greens were reeeeeally good! *rrrrrrwl*
BreyerFest was held at the Kentucky Horse Park. This is a nifty place which stables horses of just about any breed you can think of, plus there are several museums, areas for training and shows, some famous race horses, and Man O War’s gravesite. The park was huge and very atypically Kentucky, with the rolling fields of bluegrass (which I never thought looked particularly blue, though I was told it should) and grazing horses. It was all very picturesque.
As I said above, there were special edition model horses available at BreyerFest which were only going to be available there, and these are so exclusive that everyone attending had to be registered to go through the store set up there to pick and buy their horses only at a pre-assigned time of day. We were late getting to the Park the first day of BreyerFest, and Mom was scheduled to get her special horses in the first hour, so we had to race in so that she would be able to get in line and not miss her chance. The Breyer store was located in the main arena, which was huge and filled not only with dozens of vendors, but also the Opening Ceremonies going on. It was very hectic, packed with people, and confusing. I told Mom to go get in line, and I’d go get pictures of the Opening Ceremonies so that she would at least be able to see some of it.
So, that’s what I tried to do. The guest horses were all lined up in the arena by the time I found a good spot to get pictures from, and they were playing the national anthem while a rider carried the flag around the arena on horseback. I was really surprised by how many people there were. Several thousand, at least, counting all those waiting in line at the store and hanging around elsewhere in the park. It was pretty overwhelming. Aside from the people, of course there were horses, and during the Opening Ceremonies, there were quite a few different breeds in the arena, including adorable little miniature horses! They were very cute. My favorite one present was the Gypsy Vanner, which was a black and white horse with lots of feathery fur around its hooves.
After the Opening Ceremonies concluded, I figured I’d best go find Mom, since I was scheduled to get my special horses in the next rotation, and I was hoping that by then she’d know where we were suppose to go. I spotted her in the store, standing in line with her boxes of horses… and she wasn’t the only one! Some of those people had piles and piles of boxes of horses they were buying, not just the specials, but others that were available for sale in the store. Not wanting to be late for my rotation, I went and asked someone where we were suppose to go, and was directed down into the paddock area behind the arena. We were supposed to line up there and wait for the next rotation to start.
It was while I was waiting down there that I began to realize just how flipping hot Kentucky is. All I was doing was standing there, not exerting any energy or moving around or anything, and I was sweating to beat the band. I exchanged words with the girl in front of me about the heat, which she wasn’t used to either being from New York. It was pretty blasted hot, and even though it was still early in the morning, I was already feeling wiped out and tired, just from standing in the heat. Yucko. XP
I’ll admit I was also starting to think disparaging thoughts about the whole BreyerFest thing, groaning to myself about how standing out in the ridiculous heat waiting to buy plastic horses was really not the way I wanted to be spending my vacation. Some of the real horses waiting to go into the arena for their exhibition shows were being ridden around the paddock area, so it was a nice distraction to watch them, and after buying her horses Mom came down to keep me company for awhile. I gave her the camera so that she could get pictures of the horses, since I had to stay in line.
In addition to being assigned a certain time for buying the special horses, everyone had also been given a number within that rotation, anywhere from 1 to about 400, I think. My number was 22, if I remember correctly. 22 or 24… well, that doesn’t especially matter. The procedure was that the Breyer people would draw a number, and the person who had that number would be at the beginning of the line, with everyone else lining up sequentially after them. Well… for my rotation they drew 60, which meant…. 362 people later… there I was in line. Bleh. So that just added to the time I had to spend standing around in the ridiculous heat.
Looking back, it wasn’t so bad. But at the time, I was pretty grumpy and annoyed by the whole thing. And right up until the moment I got into the store, I wasn’t sure which horses I was going to pick. They had… I think four special horses available, one model of a bull, and three different porcelain horse models, one of which was large and expensive, while the other two were small sized. Everyone was allowed to buy only two. We’d looked at the pictures in the Just About Horses magazine, and Mom had picked the two she wanted, based partially on whether she liked it and partially on how much she was betting those particular models would appreciate, or how much she might be able to get for one if she sold it later on eBay. But, Mom’s a serious collector. I was just an interested collector. I just wanted horses that I liked. I’d pretty much decided on one in particular, but it was the second one I was having a hard time with. Either the other special plastic model… so that then we’d have all four between us… or one of the small porcelain models, because I was really struck by the picture of it and thought it was rather nifty. And I like porcelain.
When I got up there in the line, they were yelling that they only had 3 of that porcelain one left for our rotation, and I decided than that was the one I wanted. So I ended up with El Viajero, which is a metallicy goldish plastic model, and Flamenca, which is a small silvery-red porcelain. They are both very pretty, and I think they are actually nicer than the ones Mom picked, so I was very happy with my choices, and standing out in the heat didn’t seem like that much of a burden anymore… now that it was over.
And it WAS over! Which meant that, with the exception of waiting for the model horse that everyone got free for attending (and that was a minuscule wait comparatively), we were done with lines and standing around and could now enjoy the rest of BreyerFest! There was plenty to do and see, from the exhibition shows that were going on all the time in the arena, to the Breeds Barn where they house different types of horses for the public to look at, to the museums and exhibits set up to illustrate different aspects of equine care – such as a blacksmith’s shop for shoeing. It really was very impressive. Though I’ve always liked horses, I really never knew all that much about them. But Mom does, and over the course of the weekend she really shared a lot of knowledge with me and I learned a lot.
One of the things I learned was just what sorts of horses I really like. All horses are nifty because they are animals and I love animals. But just like I prefer some breeds of dogs over others, so too are there certain breeds of horses I like better. I’ve always been fond of the drafters – the big solid study horses that do the heavy work – like Clydesdales. Nothing really against thoroughbreds or the like, but I prefer a hefty horse to twiggy things with legs that seem likely to break if they’re looked at the wrong way. At the Kentucky Horse Park, they have drafters that actually do work around the place, and they were all in their own stables. There were Friesians (which are one of Mom’s favorites) then there were the brawny Clydesdales. And there was an English Shire, which is the hugest horse I have ever seen! He was gigantic! I’m about 5 foot 9 inches tall, and my head only came up to this horse’s shoulder. Big and buff! His name was Camelot, and I just fell in love with him. Enough so that later during the weekend, I bought a little porcelain Shire model, just because I was really impressed by Camelot.
I also discovered that I really love horses that seem close to more primitive stock. Maybe not as large as the drafters, but stocky and well built nonetheless, with a very blocky shape to the head. And with the primitive features like stripes on the legs and a dorsal stripe down the back. They had a mustang in the Breed Barn that was a prime example. Some of the little pony breeds that have been isolated from gene exchange with other varieties also fit the bill, but I really prefer a large equine to a small one. There were some very cute little ponies from India, however, that I really liked.
A Swap Meet and original artist show was scheduled for the first night of BreyerFest at the main hotel, so after we had dinner Mom and I went over there. It was really hectic! All over the hotel, people were dealing plastic horses out of their rooms (heh…), some had literally set up small stores with hundreds of horses in one room to be browsed and bought! There were signs up all over the halls directing you to this room or that, and there were people absolutely everywhere! In addition to all the people selling out of their rooms, there were actual dealers set up in a large conference room on the ground level, and the place was so stuffed full of people that you literally couldn’t move unless someone else did. I didn’t like that too much, but it was fun to look at all the horses for sale. And by that point I was actually on the lookout for something in particular.
You see, in this fandom, people not only collect the horses just as they are released by Breyer, but a lot of artists actually redo the horses and offer them up for sale as originals with new paint jobs or changed positions or added sculpting. Sometimes they just rework a horse to reflect a different realistic color or whatnot, but some artists really do horses up spectacularly with unrealistic colors, creating new creatures altogether. Sometimes they go with fantasy themes… like one example in particular that comes to mind was a rearing horse that had been reworked into a fantasy lion. They sometimes festoon their creations in intricate costumes made of leather and beads, or battle armor… wherever their imagination takes them.
Having seen some of these types of reworked horses on display, I was feeling inspired to give it a try myself, and Mom had bought me an unpainted Clydesdale from a vendor to experiment with. I had an idea of what I’d like to do with him, but feeling –very- inspired I was on the lookout for other unpainted models that I might be able to pick up cheap (actually, the best way to get inexpensive Breyers for repainting is to look for old battered ones in junk shops, flea markets, or garage sales. If they’re in bad shape, then they have no collector’s value anymore and are perfect for reworking). I didn’t find any more unpainted ones that I could afford, but I did find the big main expensive purchase of my entire vacation. ^^;;
At one of the vendor booths, we came across a gorgeous reddish Clydesdale model with the neatest oriental koi design done on both sides of him. This was apparently a Breyer special release for the Year of the Horse, or something like that, but I just fell in love with him because he was so beautiful and unique – I hadn’t seen another one at any of the other vendors. He was called Cai Lun. I really wanted him, but he was marked at $125, and I really balked at paying that much for a Breyer horse, even though I know that’s actually a pretty reasonable price for a special edition in superb shape as this one was. But, I’m not really a collector myself! Only serious collectors should be putting down that kind of money for plastic horsies. I put him back, but we’d only moved down two booths before I decided to go back and get him. Collector or not, I really wanted that dang horse! He was that beautiful.
I managed to talk the lady down to $110. Not a huge discount, but enough to satisfy me and make me feel like I wasn’t putting down THAT much moolah. The horse was mine! Deciding that was more than enough money spent, I left Mom to check out the rest of the booths and went out into the hallway to sit down, pull out my horsie, and gaze adoringly at him while reverently handling him in what probably looked like a naughty manner.
On the second day of BreyerFest, in addition to seeing the sights at the Horse Park, Mom and I attended a couple of workshops that she had signed us up for. Both were to learn how to do repainting on Breyer horses, and the first one was a basic techniques class. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and I got to use an airbrush for the first time in my life, plus everyone got a model horse to work on and keep. The instructors showed us a couple different techniques, so my horse is a little hodgepodge of those techniques, all patchy with different colors and textures. But it was an excellent class for learning the basics, which I was glad to do as I was all inspired to repaint a horse but had no idea how to go about it.
The second class was for painting specifically appaloosas, which are of course the horses with the spots. The teacher was a really fun lady who was encouraging to everyone in the class. Again we got a horse to paint and keep, and this time we were able to end up with a fairly decent almost finished horse. I was quite proud of mine, and Mom’s turned out freakin’ gorgeous *is jealous of mother’s artistic skill*. When the class was over, the teacher gave us all gay little certificates to show that we’d completed the course. ^_^
One of the odder things I witnessed over BreyerFest weekend was a model horse show. Breyer collectors often show their horses, in events disturbingly close to real horse showing, only without a full-sized live horse to lead around, feed, and clean up after. I was rather mystified by this at first, when we arrived at the show tent to watch some of the judging already in progress. For some of the classes, ‘owners’ had displayed their horses with tack, costumes, or in dioramas depicting equestrian events or natural backdrops. This I could sort of understand, as I assumed that the judges were rating the horses on the basis of the displays. But in a lot of the classes… in fact, in most of the classes… the horses were displayed solo, just as they were when they left the factory, and in many cases not only were there many of the same model in a single class, but also many of the same color.
This was what confused me. I didn’t understand how one could judge two horses that were suppose to be exactly alike in all ways. Mom explained to me that the judges look not only at the condition of the model, but also at the quality of it, which is why serious people who collect and show are so hot to get models with the best color and detail. We watched a bunch of the classes. Naturally I wanted to see the drafter classes, and I was pretty impressed with some of the horses displayed (not just Breyers, but models from other companies as well).
After I started to understand the whole process better, I started thinking it might be fun to try showing my own horses, especially the specials and Cai Lun, since I am already quite proud of how nice they are and what good shape they’re in. Of course, the chances of a Breyer live show coming to Alaska is pretty fricken remote, but they also do photo shows where participants send in pictures of their models to be judged. I decided that once I got home, I’d look into the particulars of that and see if it was something I might like to do. Actually, I remember way back when I was a kid and playing with Mom’s Breyers, she’d actually asked me if I wanted to try and photo show the horses and I’d been all for it, so I guess I’m just rekindling an old interest I didn’t really remember that I’d had. ^^;;
The second day of BreyerFest was also the day for the convention dinner. I didn’t really have any idea what to expect, but what we got wouldn’t have been it. It was nice enough – a buffet style affair with a Mexican theme (since BreyerFest was celebrating the Spanish breeds that year) which forced me to break my diet if I wanted to eat anything, since it was all corn tamales and white flour tortillas and other things that are bad for me. I was most disappointed in the dessert selection, however, since everything they offered contained some sort of chocolate. I don’t eat chocolate anymore, as it contains caffeine, which I am highly sensitive to. That’s non-negotiable, and part of my diet I absolutely will not break, or else I will be sick and miserable. I even asked the lady serving if they had anything without chocolate in it and she laughed at me and said, “It’s a chocolate world, honey!” Feeling rather irritated, I explained that I couldn’t have chocolate because of medical reasons and that they really should have something else available. At that, she seemed more sympathetic and said that she would mention it to someone so that maybe in the future they’d have an alternative available.
Well… yeah, nice sentiment, but that didn’t really help me any. The food was all very spicy and hot and the lines to get beverages were ridiculously long and poorly organized. I was not terribly impressed by the entire situation. After the dinner, we hung around in the show tent to watch them judge the maraca contest that Breyer was sponsoring, and to be present for the drawing of one of the raffles, since they were offering a very exclusive edition horse of which only 25 or so were made. We didn’t win it.
On the third morning of BreyerFest, we got up early and caught a bus out to Keeneland Race Track, for a special tour that Mom had signed us up for. Though not as well known as the Derby track, Keenland is important because every year this is where people come from all over the world to sell or buy fledgling racehorses from the most famous and expensive lines. For a racetrack, the place was actually quite beautiful. It was all stone buildings with leafy ivy growing all up it, lovely manicured lawns, and courtyards filled with large overhanging trees. We got to see racehorses on the track, going through their morning workouts, which was pretty neat. The tour then took us out to Adena Springs which is a stud farm, so that we could find out all about the process of breeding and see some of the handsome stallions available for stud. (Alphabet Soup, Congaree, El Prado) Though I don’t know much about racehorses, Mom was impressed with some of the names on the pedigrees of the horses we saw.
One of the cutest things that happened during the tour had nothing to do with the horses at all, but rather a cat in the stud barn. As we were passing through, everyone saw a husky grey and white cat sitting there, blinking blearily as if he’d just woke up, but looking also as if he were waiting for the tour to go by him. Naturally, a bunch of people broke off from the main group to go over and pet him, myself included, and he was a real sweetie, though he definitely gave the impression that he fully expected everyone to pay attention to him. The tour guide told us that his name was Pete, and that it never ceased to amaze him how people who were suppose to be there looking at horses always had to stop and pet the cat. As we continued on, folks in the group around me were moaning about missing their kitties and comparing how long it had been since they’d seen them. I won with my “four weeks” over everyone else’s two or three days.
As the third day was the last of BreyerFest, much of the rest of the time was spent going through vendor booths one last time, watching the Closing Ceremonies (lost another raffle, and that was the model I really would have liked to have won!) and taking a bunch of pictures. We saw famous racehorses John Henry, Cigar, Western Dreamer, and da Hoss, all of whom are stabled at the Kentucky Horse Park. We visited Man O War’s gravesite (actually, I think that was the second day…). And, I got to meet and take pictures of TJ, which is the horse that played Hidalgo in the movie. He was a real ham for the camera, turning his head whenever he saw a flash go off, and he was infinitely patient with all the kids who wanted to pet him. There was also a beautifully shaggy horse there named Rowdy Yates, whom everyone else seemed to know, but I had no idea who he was. I just took pictures of him because he was pretty. (Actually, according to the BreyerFest program, Rowdy Yates is “among the world’s most decorate Colonial Spanish Horses with the breed’s highest awards in the American Indian Horse Registry, the Spanish Mustang Registry, and the Open Distance competition in the North American Trail Ride Conference.” I don’t know what any of that junk means, but I suppose it sounds pretty impressive.)
After the Closing Ceremonies, Mom and I walked over to the show jumping field and watched the last little bit of an equestrian event, which was pretty neat since I’d never seen anything like that live before, only on television.
All in all, BreyFest was a whole lotta fun and very educational. It was definitely the most unique con I’ve ever been to. In spite of the fact that it was so hot and humid that it felt like being pelted by bricks every time we walked outside, they were charging five dollars for lemonade, and the place was a packed and seething sea of sweaty humanity, I really did have a lot of fun and I was very glad that I went. I know that Mom enjoyed it. She’s already trying to plot how she can go again, but still come up to Alaska next year. ^_^ Speaking of Alaska… as far as I can tell, I was the only person from Alaska to attend BreyerFest. They had a big map of North America hung up in the main arena and everyone was suppose to put a pin in where they were from. My little pin on Anchorage was all alone in the entire state of Alaska.
And as far as the model horses go, we later found out (much later in fact, just like last week) that I had picked the best specials. El Viajero and Flamenca had the least amount of models made and will probably be worth the most. Wah ha! I win! El Viajero in particular is currently going for about $100 on eBay, and I paid $40 for him! Heee…
Click here to see all of the pictures from BreyerFest, Keeneland and Adena Springs
We spent another night in Lexington and in the morning we set out for Mammoth Cave! This was just a short jaunt, only a couple hours, down pleasant Kentucky highways where the scenery alternated between rolling green horse fields and fascinating outcrops of limestone. I was hot to get a piece of that limestone for myself, being the geology fangirl that I am, and at one point when there was no one else on the highway for a few miles, Mom pulled off the road and told me to quick scramble out and grab a rock. So I did, making a mad dash from the car to the loose material scattered around the outcropping. My eyes dashed over the rocks quickly, I reached down and picked one up, turned it over and…. LO AND BEHOLD! There were fossil brachiopods in it! Whee heee! I flew back to the car and we continued down the highway, with me being quite proud of myself.
When we got to the exit for Horse Cave, Kentucky, I requested we pull off and stop at the American Cave Museum, because I was hoping to find a decent map of the attractions in the area, as I was sort of unsure of where some of the things we wanted to go to were located. So, we drive into Horse Cave, discovering that it’s a town about as big as a thimble, and we step into the American Cave Museum, where a nice lady asks us if we’d like to go on the cave tour. Eh? was our response. Turns out, there’s a cave beneath the museum and a tour just left, so if we hurried we could catch up with them. We figured that since we weren’t in a hurry and had time before we were suppose to check into the hotel anyway, we might as well.
This turned out to be Hidden River Cave, so named because it was formed by an underground river which still rushes through it. The tour was short, but quite fascinating. Apparently the people of Horse Cave had once tapped the Hidden River as their primary water source and thanks to farming chemicals and other pollutants, this Cave had for a time the dubious distinction of being the most polluted cave in America. Lovely. But conservation efforts over the last decade have helped to turn that around., although there is still a lot of junk and debris down there.
But what was the coolest thing about Hidden River Cave was how flipping close it actually is to the surface. At the far end of the tour, we were in a large domed chamber which the guide told us has occasionally flooded all the way to the top (though not in the last few years), and the bottom of the cave was filled with huge boulders and rubble that used to be parts of the ceiling, but had broken off thanks to the floods. Come to find out, the ceiling of that cave was only a dozen feet or so below the surface of the intersection at the center of Horse Cave! In fact, back up in the gift shop, I bought the neatest refrigerator magnet that shows the huge deep hole that is Hidden River undercutting the street. Pretty freaky!
Mom had some problems at Hidden River Cave. There were a lot of steps (though I don’t think I ever found out how many, there had to have been a couple hundred) and she was very slow going up and down them. Part of the problem was that when she was in Ireland last year, she took a fall visiting Aillnee Cave and messed up her knee very bad. So, not only was that impeding her, but it also made her extra cautious about taking a misstep in a dark cave. Understandable. As we headed back up out of the cave, I stayed behind her and our guide stayed behind me, which was very sweet of him. My mother especially appreciated that because when she fell in Ireland, her tour guides just kept going and didn’t notice that she’d fallen behind or was even hurt! As we headed up, I talked to the guide about the tours in Mammoth Cave and whether or not he thought my Mom would be able to handle the one I’d gotten reservations for.
Unfortunately, he said no. He said that the tour I’d picked had a very steep descent down a very narrow tube and that even he – an experienced caver – had problems making it. Oh wonderful. This was not what I wanted to hear at all, but then again I had no idea what to expect when I was making those reservations in the first place. Anyway, he advised me that it would be a good idea to switch my reservations to a different tour, and recommended the Travertine one, as he said it was easy.
This was good information to have. We left Horse Cave. We never did get the better map that I was really hoping for, but found a decent enough pamphlet for attractions in Cave City that I was now confident of finding my way around.
Click here to see all of the pictures from Hidden River Cave
Our next stop was going to be Dinosaur World. Apparently after I’d left Alaska, this place mailed me a brochure and Dino had scanned the cover so that I could see it, hinting around that he hoped we could go and get pictures of giant dinosaur feet (and other body parts). Dinosaur World was supposed to be a good-sized park filled with statues of life-size dinosaurs. Sounded like fun, so Mom and I were on the lookout for it as we got to Cave City. I was worried that we’d somehow miss it as we drove in, but my worries were unfounded. Right on the exit off the highway there was a huge t-rex and billboard proclaiming that this was the exit we wanted to take. Couldn’t miss the place.
Oh, it was a lot of fun! And a lot bigger and more involved that I’d imagined it would be. They had tons of statues, all scattered throughout the park so that as you walked the path through the woods, you’d come across dinosaurs supposedly in their natural settings. And they actually had more than just dinosaurs. There were some early reptiles and mammal-like reptiles as well, which were all marked as such much to my satisfaction. In the central area, there were herds of Ultrasaurs, stegos and others, with a large t-rex sneaking in to stalk them. It was really well done, for the most part. Some of the models were really inaccurate and dopey looking, while others were extremely well done, and there didn’t seem to be any sort of consistency as to why or which. There was also a little museum with casts of eggs and claws, a little theater, and a huge gift shop, naturally. Even the bathrooms had paintings of dinosaurs on the walls!
The niftiest statue, however, was Photosaurus. ^_^ This was a huge HUGE statue out on the highway next to a billboard, this one after the exit to let motorists know that they’d just passed Dinosaur World and missed out. It was not meant to be an actual species, but just a fun gigantic made-up dinosaur that you could take pictures with. And we did, naturally. For the macrophiles on the Lava Dome Five list, I lounged around on massive toes. ^_^ In addition to Photosaurus, I got pictures of all the other dinos and reptiles they had, and got lots of shots of feet (for the macrophiles), teeth (for the vorephiles) and under the tails (for the… uhm… under-the-tail-aphiles…).
Click here to see all of the pictures from Dinosaur World - and there are a lot!
After spending money at Dinosaur World, it was time to head on to Mammoth Cave National Park and check into the hotel. The drive from Cave City to the park took us past a ton and a half of tourist traps and (much to my glee) rock shops, but we didn’t stop at any just yet, as now we were tired and wanted to get to the hotel. Once we got to the boundaries of the park, it was national forest and all the tall spreading trees were really quite beautiful. I was watching the map, because there were a couple turns we were going to have to make, and as is my habit when navigating, I was reading some of the signs we passed out loud, so as to fix in my mind where we were.
So, we drive past an obviously very old cemetery and as we go by, I read the name of the place out loud. “Little Hope Cemetery.” Mom starts laughing and after a couple of blank seconds I did as well! I couldn’t believe it! That has got to be the –worst- and most brutally ironic name for a cemetery ever! Of course, I was determined that I would have to get a picture of that sign sometime while we were there. We later found out that there used to be a small community around the Mammoth Cave area in the early to mid 1800s, and it was called Little Hope, because it was such a remote location that the locals said once you were there, there was little hope of getting out again. Hence the name of the cemetery. I still think that’s a hilariously cruel name for one’s final resting place, however. ^_^
The hotel was set deep in the park, directly next door to the visitor’s center which in turn sits almost directly on top of the Historic Entrance for Mammoth Cave. Check-in was painless, but since I had reserved for the room and paid for the first night and Mom was going to be paying for the second night, the front desk needed her to come back after we unloaded our stuff in the room so they could get her credit card information. It was pretty funny because when we walked up to the desk, the three people there suddenly looked guilty and sheepish, and one of them explained that they’d been sitting there debating how my last name was pronounced. ^_^ Mom teased me later that everywhere I went on my vacation I was probably becoming known as “that blue-haired girl with the weird last name.”
The hotel was nice, but it’s probably been there since the 40s, and it really looked like it! The rooms had walls of brick and paneling, and some of the weirdest fixtures (for some reason, the light switch in the bathroom was at about eye level…). It was very teeny small and our two double beds were pretty much crammed in there. The room smelled like it had been around since the 40s as well. ^^ It wasn’t horrible or unbearable or anything, just musty and old-smelling, and I thought it was pretty amusing. And of course Mom was saying she could remember staying in places like that on trips with her parents when she was a little girl in the 50s… and that the style of our hotel room had been old even back then!
The gift shop at the hotel was really nice, but we weren’t too impressed with the dining room. It was overpriced and the quality of food wasn’t all that good. I went over to the park visitor’s center first thing to try and switch our tour reservations, just in case it would be a problem to do it on the day of our reservation. As it turned out, they were pretty easy going about it all and I felt better about it, because I wanted Mom to enjoy her caving experience and not be constantly worried about hurting herself or going too slow.
Our tour was the next morning, and so we toddled over to the visitor’s center to wait for the bus that would take us across the park to the Frozen Niagara entrance of the cave system. On the way, our tour guide of course gave us the safety spiel, but also told us about the kinds of wildlife in the park and some of the cave critters we might see, like bats, cave crickets and cave spiders. Of course Mom and I had learned about all these cave dwelling animals back at the American Cave Museum in Horse Cave so we were prepared. When we got off the bus though, we found wild turkeys foraging around by the cave entrance! They took off too fast for me to get pictures of them though… poo.
The Frozen Niagara entrance was manmade – looking like a concrete bunker set into the side of a hill. This part of the Mammoth Cave system is the only part (they say) that is still being actively shaped by water, and so it is full of the limestone formations that one generally associates with caves, such as stalactites and stalagmites. And it all really was quite beautiful and like a totally alien world down there. There was dim lighting on some of the structures so that we could see them better, and I had to experiment a lot and use my camera quickly as I tried to get the best shots of all the wonderful formations. There was almost too much to properly take in. Entire rooms were filled with lovely structures that gave every impression of being almost like living creatures which had grown in this cave throughout the centuries, and I suppose that if you believe in the notion of living rock, as I do, then that idea seems all the more real. There was a certain energy to the place, almost a sentient newness… even though these formations are many hundreds of years old… the newness is in the sense that these entities are still being formed right before your eyes. Oh, and there was cave bacon. Can't forget the cave bacon. ^_~
Some of the more delicate formations were fenced off to prevent tourists from touching them, which was probably a very good idea as I found myself hard pressed not to put my hands on things, loving as I do to feel the energies and personalities of all things of the geological nature. I understand that my touching can cause damage, but it’s so hard to resist! And in some of the spots where the ceiling was low, you really kind of had to touch in order to brace yourself going through. One of the large chambers we passed through was called Onyx Chamber, and it was just frickin’ filled with shapes and textures and color. At one point we passed over Crystal Lake, which was very far below us, so far that the water at the bottom of the pit couldn’t really be seen since the light didn’t penetrate that far. Above Crystal Lake was Moonlight Dome, which loomed high above us.
At the end of the tour we came out into a very large chamber to find Frozen Niagara itself – a huge formation which looks like falling water frozen in time, or like petrified curtains that they hang along the walls of movie theaters – it was ruffled in just that sort of way. It’s called flowstone. According to the guidebook I bought, Frozen Niagara is 75 feet high and 50 feet wide. It’s very hard to get a sense of the scale in my pictures, as available lighting was poor and the formation was too huge to get all in one shot. But it really was spectacular.
In this chamber, ground water is actively leaking through the ceiling, dripping down onto the rocks below, and seeping throughout the cave to add to all these amazing formations. Our path led in a circle down into the chamber, and our guide stopped us about halfway down, where we could see Frozen Niagara. She explained that there was another chamber deeper down, known as the Drapery Room, which we could go see, but there were about 90 or so steps, so we had the option of going down or waiting where we were so as not to bother with the stairs. Mom decided to wait, which was probably a good idea as those steps were wet and would have been dangerous with uncertain footing, but of course I could not resist going down all the way. The Drapery Room was incredible! It was a little chamber tucked in underneath and behind Frozen Niagara, and it was just filled with formations of every size and shape from floor to ceiling! I was hard pressed to get enough pictures to really do it justice. As our group moved into the chamber, several people saw a bat flapping around up near the ruffled ceiling. I didn’t see it myself, but I took a couple pictures in that general direction hoping to catch it on film. Unfortunately, I don’t think I did.
That bat wasn’t the only wildlife we saw, however! As we were headed back, our guide pointed out a cave spider tucked into some rock just a few inches above our head. Again, I tried to get a picture, but wasn’t able too, as cave spiders are very small and rather translucent in nature. I was much luckier with the cave crickets. We actually saw quite a number of these, usually on the ceilings over where we were passing by, so as to make one nervous about the possibility of them dropping on you. ^_^ They were very pale in color and had reeeeeally long antennae, which naturally makes sense. If you live in surroundings which are usually pitch black, you need some way of sensing and being able to interact with the environment around you. I did get one really good shot of a few dozen of the things clustered around a depression in the ceiling. This was only about two feet above our heads.
I was thrilled with the cave, but the tour was actually very short – probably only about an hour or so long – so when we emerged back out into the open (and the lens on my camera immediately fogged up), I was actually feeling a little disappointed that it was all over. I was raring to go explore more caves, but the tour was done, and it just seemed like it wasn’t enough. I mean, Mammoth Cave is a place I’ve always wanted to go, and it seemed like kind of a letdown that an hour tour was all I got. Yes, it was very beautiful, and I was thrilled to have seen it, but still….
Click here to see all of the pictures from the Mammoth Cave Travertine Tour
As we were riding the bus back to the Visitors Center, I was plotting how we might get to see more of the cave. There was a tour listed called the Discovery Tour, which said that it essentially explored around the entrance of the original cave, and that there was a guide to take you in, but beyond that you were free to explore the first few chambers at your own leisure. I thought that sounded pretty good for Mom, because then she wouldn’t be worried about trying to keep up with a group. I really wanted to take the Historic Tour, which was a two and a half hour tour that took you through all the most famous features of the cave, but I thought that would probably be too much for Mom. She didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about doing another tour in the first place, even though she’d really liked seeing Frozen Niagara and everything, she just didn’t feel up to tackling anymore. So then… feeling rather scummy and selfish… I asked if she would be terribly offended if I went on another tour by myself.
She said that she had actually been about to suggest that, since she knew how much fun I’d had in the first tour and in Hidden River Cave, and the lava tubes in Idaho. She wanted me to enjoy myself, even if she didn’t feel up to going with me, saying that going to BreyerFest had been pretty much for her, so seeing Mammoth Cave was for me. I still felt kind of guilty, because when I go on vacation with someone, aside from seeing the attractions, the main thing I want to do is spend time with that person, you know? But at the same time I was really excited. I ran right back to the Visitors Center and got a ticket for the afternoon Historic Tour.
But first, we were going to take a boat ride! This is sort of a tradition for Mom and I, it seems like every time we go on vacation, we end up riding a boat at some point or another. Anyway, we were going to take a paddleboat up the Green River, which is the main river that runs through Mammoth Cave National Park. The tour description said that we would see wildlife and limestone cliffs, plus it sounded like a nice leisurely thing to do. We had to drive up the road a little way to the Green River ferry, and as we got close, we were amused to see a road sign which said “Road Ends In Water”. We joked about how that didn’t sound good, but as we came around the corner, we saw that the road did indeed end right smack in the water!
There was a little park operated ferry there that was big enough to take three cars across the river at a time, and this was also where the “Miss Green River” paddleboat docked. Mom went and waited at the landing while I ran back up the road to get a picture of the “Road Ends In Water” sign. As I did, I noticed a small limestone outcropping along the road with a small cave opening that had been boarded up so people wouldn’t go in there. I thought that was kind of neat and very mysterious looking. It’s probably a good thing it was boarded up; because that’s just the kind of dangerous little spot I’d like to poke into.
The Green River itself was actually rather boring. Even though the guide assured us that the Green River usually is a very beautiful green color, on this day it was very brown, thanks to the rain Kentucky had gotten that weekend (that was on the second day of BreyerFest, which meant we had to dash from place to place at the Kentucky Horse Farm. Oddly enough, though it rained much of the day, it never cooled off at all…) It was a very sunny day, and so we saw a bazillion turtles resting out on logs and such to sun themselves. We also saw a couple buzzards, and a deer or two which I failed to get pictures of because they moved too fast. But the promised limestone cliffs were pretty well blocked by vegetation so we were only able to get glimpses of them. Though I enjoyed the boat trip simply because it was nice to get out and see a little bit of aboveground nature and appreciate the simple beauty of natural life… I suppose I really could have done without the Green River tour. By the time it was over, I was feeling a little yucky from the sun.
Click here to see all of the pictures from the Green River
We went back to the hotel and got some lunch. I downloaded the pictures from the day so far off the camera and onto the laptop so I would have plenty of room for more cave pictures, and I made sure everything was charged and ready to go. After lunch it was time for my Historic Tour, so Mom walked with me to the Visitors Center and I found where I was suppose to wait for the tour to start, while Mom then went back to the hotel room to rest up.
The Historic Entrance of Mammoth Cave is literally almost underneath the Visitors Center. We took a winding path down and around under the building and a little way along, until we got to it, and it was essentially just a huge hole in the ground leading down into the darkness. It was pretty wild, because as we got closer, the air temperature changed from the blistering mugginess of Kentucky into something far more pleasant, cool and dry, and the change was as sudden as if we passed through some invisible barrier that separated the two. Now of course the Native Americans used the cave as early as 4 thousand years ago – their artifacts and even mummies have been found in the caves – but the Historic Entrance was supposedly rediscovered in 1797 by some hunter chasing after a wounded bear. As we descended down into the cave, we went through what was essentially an airlock, and our guide explained that a few years ago environmental scientists had done a study of the cave and discovered that all the human visitors were leaving too much lint and dust in the entrance, so the airlock was designed to blow some of that off before it could get into the cave.
A long passage led into the cave. I took a lot of pictures a long here of the way that the limestone was laying, and various interesting little bits of geology which would probably only be interesting to geologists. At some points the ceiling was low, but not so low that I had to stoop over. This was called Houchins Narrows (named after the hunter that supposedly found the entrance). It opened out into a large chamber… A LARGE chamber… and I suddenly realized that I was going to have a very difficult time getting pictures on this tour.
This chamber was called the Rotunda. And it was huge. HUGE. Huge enough that when I got back to the hotel room, I couldn’t even describe how huge it was to Mom. As we stepped into it and I began to get a sense of just how flippin’ big it was, I was just astounded and my tour guide laughed because I just gaped and said “Holy spit…” There was no way that I could get a decent picture because it was just too big and not only could I never hope to get it all into one frame, but the meager light of my flash simply wouldn’t penetrate far enough. I tried, though! And there is a picture of it in my guidebook, but even that only shows a small portion of this immense space. Quite literally, I could never hope to properly describe just how huge this chamber was.
Back during the War of 1812, this had been a major saltpeter mine, and a lot of the old mining artifacts were still preserved here in a pit at the center of the Rotunda. The guide gave a short talk on the history of the operation and how it was halted at some point before the end of the war by an earthquake which shifted the cave enough that much of the equipment was ruined, and that by the time they got things working again, the war was over and the demand for saltpeter diminished. After that point, the owners of the cave decided to market it as a tourist attraction and they began to run guided tours in and out.
We continued down a huge corridor, which maintained the scale of the Rotunda, known as Gothic Avenue. Along the way, the guide pointed out huge blackened spots on the walls, which were the result of soot from the early explorers’ lanterns and candles staining the normally white gypsum. Along the way we saw more evidence of the old mining operations and an old rickety staircase that led up into what was once called the Haunted Room, because at some point in the past, one of the mummies found in the caves had been displayed there for visitors to see. Then we came to Giant’s Coffin, which was a huge limestone block that broke down from the wall of the cave during a flood sometime in the past. Again, the thing was huge and not lit well, so it was hard to get pictures, but it really was quite amazing, as it really was shaped very much like a humongous coffin.
We took a passage that led behind and under the Giant’s Coffin. Now the passages were much tighter and in some places the ceilings were very low. You had to go single file through much of it. There were lots of fascinating formations and crawl spaces doing off here and there all along the way. I made sure that I stayed pretty much directly behind our guide so that I could ask her questions, such as how far into the cave system had the Native Americans penetrated? She told me that they had evidence of them having explored only about 12 miles of the cave (out of the over 300 miles in the complete system), and that it seemed that they mostly just used the entrances as campsites, and they also occasionally mined the gypsum and other minerals out of the cave. But researchers were mystified by some of the places that the Native Americans explored – like little tiny crawl spaces where you literally had to inch along on your belly to get through. They couldn’t figure out why the early people would bother venturing into places like that, when there were plenty of unexplored passages where crawling wasn’t necessary.
During this part of the tour, we saw a lot of what they called “historical graffiti” on the walls and ceiling. These were all marks made by holding candles up to the white gypsum and writing with the soot this left behind. Back in the old days, the tour guides (who were usually slaves) earned a little extra money by letting the tourists do this and charging them a quarter. Tourists would write their names and the date and often where they were from. Sometimes (for another quarter) the guides would let visitors stack rocks up to build little mounds and monuments. Of course, they don’t allow anyone to do such things now, but it really was interesting to see all the old names and very old dates and imagine gentlemen and ladies in their fine 1800s period clothing picking daintily through the caves and being delighted with being able to leave their mark (only the rich and well-to-do could afford to make the trip into the wilderness of Kentucky back in those days).
After this we crossed over Sidesaddle Pit and Bottomless Pit (missed getting a picture there), both of which are deep dark holes which seem to do down forever. Now the passages were getting very narrow and the ceilings were very low. Some of the taller people had to really stoop, and I had abandoned trying to take pictures in favor of navigating my way through the passages. We came to Fat Man’s Misery, which was the one place I’d been worried about getting through, since I am not in the least bit petite myself, but it actually wasn’t what I’d been expecting or was worried about. It was what’s known as a keyhole passage, which means that it’s very narrow on the bottom, but widens out at the top. There was only a few available inches of space on the floor, and the rock jutted out up to about hip height, but then above that it opened out so enough that you could put your arms out and brace yourself as you turned this way and that to try and slip through. At some points I was bent around funny like a pretzel, with my legs going in one direction and my upper body twisted in a different direction. It was very tight, but a lot of fun and all of us at the front of the tour with the guide were laughing and making jokes.
Then, the passage widened out enough that you were able to walk straight again (though it was still pretty tight around your feet), but the ceiling dropped down drastically. This passage was called Tall Man’s Misery. We had to squat down and literally duck walk about 30 feet or so. If I hadn’t of lost so much weight this year, I don’t think I would have been able to do it, and there was no way Mom would have been able to. When I was showing her the pictures later back in the hotel room, she said she was very glad she hadn’t tried to take that tour, because she was really creeped out by the thought of all those tight low passages.
After the Miseries, the passages opened up again, out into Great Relief Hall. This is where there were normally bathrooms available for people to use, but due to storms in the park recently, those were out of commission. So we went straight through Great Relief Hall, down into a different chamber called River Hall. This was a nice rounded area with several rows of benches where we were invited to sit down and rest after tackling the Miseries (and to wait for people to catch up). A passage led off this hall, down deeper into the caves and eventually to the underground River Styx where they offer seasonal boat rides through the river chambers. That was the tour I had originally tried to reserve and had so much trouble with on the phone and the website. But, in retrospect it was okay that I didn’t reserve that tour, since there was no way Mom could have made it that far down into the caves. Still, it would have been neat to see the underground river… well, next time I’ll just have to remember to see Mammoth Cave before July 19, which is as late as that seasonal tour runs.
As we sat in River Hall, the guide answered some questions. I asked how far below the surface we were at that point, and she said about 310 feet (not as low as we got, though, because Mammoth Dome was further down). Someone asked if there were animals in the caves, and she explained about the crickets, spiders and bats, and then told about the eyeless fish in the waters of the River Styx, the only place in the entire world that particular species of fish is found. Then, to show us what it would be like to be an animal that lived in a world of no light and very little sound, she asked us to all cover up any watches, cell phones or anything else we had that might be glowing, requested that we all be as quiet as we could, and then she and the other guide shut off all the lights.
Well, you know that I did something pretty much the same as this when I was in Kuna Cave in Idaho, but it was still pretty neat. Especially to think that we were so much farther below the surface here than I’d been in Idaho, and you know… if anything went wrong here, it wouldn’t be nearly so easy to find the way back to the surface in the dark with all those different passages going this way and that! And again, it was the most pitch black that pitch black can be. Before she turned the lights back on, the guide told us to uncover our watches and such, and it was really amazing what a difference even the miniscule amount of light from a watch glow can make. When the lights came back up, it was pretty amusing to see all the little kids clinging to their parents. ^_^
Next we moved onto Mammoth Dome and entered at the bottom of it. At about 192 feet in height, this is one of the deepest known vertical shafts in the entire cave system. Again, it was so big that it was difficult to get pictures, but I did my best. A formation called the Ruins of Karnak (that shot is of the very top) is here, these are monolithic pillars originally shaped by descending water, which look amazingly like ancient weathered pillars you might find on a ruined temple or something. My pictures are pretty cruddy. There just wasn't enough light, unfortunately. We also saw a fossil coral in the wall! To get out of Mammoth Dome, we had to ascend a really tall metal scaffolding tower. I don’t remember how many steps there were, but it was a lot! I stopped frequently to try in vain to get more pictures and that ended up putting me more toward the back end of the group, rather than in front like I’d been for most of the tour. But that was okay. I talked a little with the other guide, the one who’d been at the back to make sure no one got lost, and the tour was winding down to the end anyway. We climbed back up into the enormous void of Audubon Avenue, which led into the Rotunda again from the other side, and from there we exited back out the Historic Entrance.
Then came what was actually the most grueling part of the entire tour – making it back up the hill to the Visitors Center! Man! It was so hot out there and even though I’d been fine and dandy to pick through the cave and go up all those stairs in Mammoth Dome, I was just about wiped out by the time I made it back to the hotel room. It was JUST like being hit with a huge wet boiling brick to pass through that invisible barrier between cool cave air and sweltering Kentucky heat. Yucko!
Click here to see all of the pictures from the Mammoth Cave Historic Tour
After I related all the adventures to Mom (and I was ridiculously excited about it all, I know) we decided to head into town to get some real dinner at the local Cracker Barrel. On our way back to the hotel, driving through the dark with unreliable headlights (because we couldn’t figure them out), we saw a number of deer along the road. Turning onto the hotel grounds, we saw a huge herd of deer grazing on the lawn. I’m not sure how many there were, but Mom estimated over a dozen, maybe more. I dunno, I don’t quite remember anymore.
In the morning, we fed the squirrels and chipmunks from the balcony of our room with biscuits we’d brought back from Cracker Barrel the night before. Those little mooches were waiting for it the moment we opened the balcony door and stepped out. It was fun to watch them scamper around picking up the bits we tossed, or sitting up all cute and gazing hopefully up at us. A big blue jay even got some; swooping down out of the trees to snatch up a bit before the squirrels could grab it.
Then we packed up all our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and headed out, fixing to make it back to Michigan that day. We stopped at a couple nifty rock and junk shops in Cave City before heading out, and then pretty much drove straight through back to Michigan, this time going up through Indiana since it was more of a direct shot home. We made it in pretty late and stopped to celebrate at an Olive Garden just up the street from Mom’s apartment, but I for one was so dang tired by that point that I barely remember eating at all. The car went back to the rental agency and the kitty came back from the vet’s the next day, and thus ended our odyssey into the wilds of Kentucky!
All in all, it was a whole lot of fun, from BreyerFest to Mammoth Caves, and seeing the caves especially was a wish fulfilled. The area around the caves seemed very highly spiritually charged. It was definitely one of those natural power spots of the world, so I am not surprised that the Native Americans gathered there. Actually, it was kind of neat while we were staying at the hotel, because I kept seeing little things moving out of the corner of my eyes, just on the edge of my vision (and they had nothing to do with the reportedly giant bugs Mom found in the bathroom, which I never saw…). I believe that places have spirits and entities of their own… for example, I’ve lived in several houses or apartments that came with their own spirits. Not ghosts in the classical sense, but just energies hanging out there… and I think that some of the things I was seeing and sensing there in the park were the cave spirits. You really could feel the presence of the cave looming beneath you, even when you couldn’t see it, and there was like a tingle in the air constantly that seemed to grant more energy and buoyancy, if that makes any sense. I always felt good while I was there, even when I was dead tired. It was a friendly, welcoming place.
And I have my own theories about why the early Native Americans ventured into strange places in the caves four thousand years ago. All over the world, caves have traditionally been known as power spots – especially seen as entrances into wombs of Mother Earth. In many cultures, holy people often undergo rites of initiation which are supposed to recreate a birthing process, to signify their rebirth into a new spiritual life. I think that the reason they find evidence of Native Americans in the small crawlspace passages is because they may have been practicing these sorts of rebirthing rituals. Or else perhaps navigating through the tight claustrophobic passages was a manhood rite to prove bravery or something of that sort. In any case, I have no doubt that the cave was a holy sacred place to the earliest people there, and they probably felt much the same as I did when I visited – that it was a welcoming power spot filled with good energies and entities.
Well, that about does it for this recap… oh yes, I almost forgot to explain the title “It’s that Friendly.” That comes from the Kentucky license plate, which must truly win a prize for being the gayest license plate in the history of license plates (numbers colorfully blotted out since I didn't ask those people's permission to photograph their license plate!).
