by Joe (dad)
We camped just outside the Mammoth Cave National Park near Park City Kentucky and made several visits to work on junior ranger badges, ride bikes and of course go inside the caves. Mammoth Cave is really a network of 400 miles of caves...we just hiked about a mile of them. When the National Park was established in 1941, there were only 44 miles of known cave, so the park is literally still growing! The caves are a constant 54 degrees with 85% humidity, which is a perfect atmosphere for preserving fossils and even humans. A Native American corpse was discovered around the 1950s and was thought to be over 1,000 years old. The body was apparently pinned by a boulder that came loose while he was mining for gypsum, but because of the environmental conditions, the body was almost perfectly preserved!
Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois all have legitimate claims to be the "Land of Lincoln" but Kentucky is really where Lincoln's story began when he was born on the Sinking Spring Farm in 1809. The granite memorial to Lincoln houses a log cabin that at the time of the memorial's dedication was thought to be the actual cabin Lincoln was born in....later carbon dating in 2004 revealed the logs weren't old enough to be Lincoln's actual birth cabin - oops.
William used his allowance along the way to acquire Buckey the Beaver and William has taken very good care of his favorite beaver. At a recent lunch stop, I noticed the thoughtful hammock William made so that Buckey could enjoy our ride. With a couple old shoe laces and a bandana, William made sure Buckey was comfortable for our ride!
We camped just outside the Mammoth Cave National Park near Park City Kentucky and made several visits to work on junior ranger badges, ride bikes and of course go inside the caves. Mammoth Cave is really a network of 400 miles of caves...we just hiked about a mile of them. When the National Park was established in 1941, there were only 44 miles of known cave, so the park is literally still growing! The caves are a constant 54 degrees with 85% humidity, which is a perfect atmosphere for preserving fossils and even humans. A Native American corpse was discovered around the 1950s and was thought to be over 1,000 years old. The body was apparently pinned by a boulder that came loose while he was mining for gypsum, but because of the environmental conditions, the body was almost perfectly preserved!
Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois all have legitimate claims to be the "Land of Lincoln" but Kentucky is really where Lincoln's story began when he was born on the Sinking Spring Farm in 1809. The granite memorial to Lincoln houses a log cabin that at the time of the memorial's dedication was thought to be the actual cabin Lincoln was born in....later carbon dating in 2004 revealed the logs weren't old enough to be Lincoln's actual birth cabin - oops.
William used his allowance along the way to acquire Buckey the Beaver and William has taken very good care of his favorite beaver. At a recent lunch stop, I noticed the thoughtful hammock William made so that Buckey could enjoy our ride. With a couple old shoe laces and a bandana, William made sure Buckey was comfortable for our ride!