Nashville Tennessee to Mammoth Caves NP Kentucky

Spring

We rocked into Nashville with plans to register for a marathon….well a half marathon. “What” I can hear you thinking but it’s easy to explain. The Country Music Marathon stages local bands every mile along the course so  I'm sure you'll agree it's sounds like a great way to listen to lots of live music.

Downtown Nashville

It reminded me of Beale Street in Memphis

There is so much to take in when arriving in a new town and in Nashville they have the Ryman Auditorium, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Fontanel Mansion, the Adventure Science Museum and much more. So being in the Country Music Capital our first stop was the Country Music Hall of Fame.

There was a tribute to the great Patsy Cline: Crazy for Loving You and an exhibit of the Bakersfield Sound of the 60’s featuring musicians like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. This interested me because we have been to Bakersfield several times and I had no idea that Californian Country Music had so much history there.

Two interesting exhibits were Elvis Presley’s customized luxury limousine, a 1960’s Cadillac. It's exterior has 40 coats of paint containing diamond dust and fish scales giving it an opulent sheen. It's hub caps, wheel covers, headlight rims and front grill are gold plated with 24 kt gold. Inside the curtains, phone, fridge and entertainment console were also gold plated.

Elvis's luxury limo

The vehicle parked beside it was the "Silver Dollar" Cadillac owned by Webb Pierce a popular Honky Tonk singer from the 50's.

The "Silver Dollar"

As the name suggests the vehicles interior was covered with silver dollar coins along with a small leather saddle and lots of guns.

Guns, coins and leather

When we walked out the sky had clouded over and with an 80% chance of rain forecast it didn't look promising for the marathon and street party scheduled for the next day. 

The downtown area was filled with bars and live music. We stepped inside some to listen for a while before moving on down the street. We sipped a beer at Honky Tonk Central listening to a country music band and fiddle player.

I think the country music was getting to us because we found ourselves in one of the many boot stores that was doing a roaring trade with a 3 for 1 offer. At $360 a pair I wondered who was getting the bargain. From then on I noticed everyone was wearing Nashville Boots.

It started to sprinkle as we ducked for cover under the shady trees on our way to BB Kings Blues Club. Carl Stewart was performing with the All Stars and we enjoyed their rich and wonderful music.

BB Kings Blues Club

It was now raining as we made our way to Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" for more live music. With all the parrot head fans in town we secretly hoped Jimmy would pop in for a surprise visit before his concert tomorrow night…!!

The rain, thunder and lightning was still going when we woke the next morning. So we needed somewhere dry to spend the day and Nashville had just the place. So with thoughts of the marathon and live music seeping away we set out to join a procession of vehicles apparently all heading to the same destination…..Gaylord's Opryland, a hotel and then some. A place you need to see for yourself.

You can take a boat ride...

Watch the fountain

Maybe stay the night

In the end the rain drove us out of Nashville and into Kentucky where we decided to explore the caves. With all the rain it’s no wonder the scenery was so beautiful and green.

No need for reticulation here..

We arrived at Mammoth Caves NP to find Green River was flooding and many of the hiking trails were closed but the good news was they were still running cave tours.

Flowering Dogwood trees

We booked our day up with a morning and an afternoon tour of the caves and learnt that so far they have surveyed 365 miles (587 km's) of cave passages making it the largest in the world.

Sitting on the bus we were driven to a location a few miles from the Visitor's Centre. Then we walked down a trail to a door, set in the rock face, with a keypad.

The door....

I squashed my claustrophobia feelings and entered the chamber focusing on the 280 steps that descended 250 ft to the bottom.

Descending the stairs

The descent had us contorting our bodies to fit through narrow openings and ducking so we wouldn't scrape out heads on the rocks above.

It was a tight squeeze

Water seeped through the rocks dripping on us as we made our way down. 

Descending further into the abyss

The Ranger mentioned the stainless steel steps had cost $3,000 per step and I couldn't imagine how they got them installed in such tight confines.

New graffiti over old graffiti

Drapery formations

We listened to interesting stories about the caves in the early 1900’s when they first became a tourist attraction. Bitter rivalry between local cave owners became known as the “Kentucky Cave Wars”. Deception lured customers away from their intended tours with one of the owners building a wall to give the impression that the cave was either quarantined, closed or inaccessible so the the tourist from the rival company was then coerced into touring the cave with them instead.

Water art

The Ranger talked about the discovery of a 2,000 year old mummified body of a gypsum miner found in the cave. And about the rescue attempts in1925 of a cave explorer who became trapped in a tight crawl space when he dislodged a rock that fell on his leg. They were unable to free him and he died of hypothermia.

Our 3 hour cave tour that afternoon was a completely different experience as we entered via the natural entrance and walked three miles through the cave carrying only a few  kerosene lanterns to light the way.

Natural cave entrance

Cave tour by lantern light

We walked by a wood pipes made from poplar logs that carried water used for mining the Saltpeter a mineral used in making gun powder required for the War of 1812 between the US and Great Britain.

Mining the Saltpeter

Further along we saw 2 huts where a Dr Croghan believed the cave environment would heal people inflicted with tuberculosis and actually sent patients to live in the huts for prescribed periods of time.

Having a rest

Early cave graffiti

There were 2 waterfalls in the cave that poured through a hole in the limestone falling around 100 feet directly down to a pool below and one of the Rangers walked on ahead to shine a torch up on the falling water. It really was an amazing sight to see deep within the cave.

Water fall

Back at the campground I began looking through tourist brochures of where to go next and I noticed that we would be near Louisville for the Kentucky Derby and I thought.... we should go.