The kids got new stuffies in the Mammoth Caves gift shop. Connor named his coyote pup "Floppy", because he has an ear that flops over. Avery names her Park Ranger doll "Mammoth" to remember where she came from.
This is a cave entrance where Indiana bats are able to hibernate. We weren't able to go in, but it was still neat to see!
When we took a trail to a scenic overlook and the kids wanted to sit on the rocks and take a picture, this was what I saw. I only imagined how far they would fall if they weren't careful.
Should have known when Michael was panicked at his angle, that everything was fine. They weren't nearly as far from the ground as I thought. Kids probably thought I was crazy when I kept telling them to sit down and not to fall or get too close to the edge. Lol!
The entire trail was soooo beautiful! It just kept going! They were the biggest trees I've ever seen in my life! I'm new to the National Park adventuring, so I ended up seeing several more places with very large trees during this trip. But even so, the scenery was just breathtaking!
My long sleeve shirt was a great idea for the cave, but a little warm on the hike. Thankfully we were in the shade most of the hike and it helped keep things cool.
The river that ran next to the walking trail we were on. I believe it's called the Green River (after a quick google search). It was MUDDY!
There was a giant tree that had fallen over the path we were walking on. We had a really good talk with the kids about how, in National Parks, people try not to interfere with what nature is doing. So all they did with this big tree was cut a section out of it so that people could still walk through the trail, move that section to the side, and leave all of the rest of the tree there where it fell. It was fun to talk about with them.
Finishing their Junior Ranger books. We sat right outside the mouth of the cave. It was like 55 degree air conditioning blasting us, outside, for free! This was much appreciated, because the hike we took, that we thought was going to be about a mile, turned out to be 3.5 miles. 👀😓 All of this after our 1.5 miles inside the caves! Needless to say, we were pretty pooped when we were done!
They finished their books and got sworn in as Junior Rangers of Mammoth Cave National Park! Their first new badges of this trip! People kept commenting on how many badges they had during this trip. The started with 3, got 2 on this trip (the second one is later in the trip), and we have to mail some stuff out to get 2 more. I can only imagine what the rangers will say when they see us at our next National Park when they kids have 7 badges! Hope their vests still fit...
Ok, sidenote, I know I'm way behind on posting these pictures, but doing it on my phone was soooo frustrating!! Using the chromebook is much easier, although, for some reason I don't see all of my pictures as options to post. Come on Google, work with me here! Although, upon closer inspection, I think my phone might be the problem... Anyways, the computer is working much better, so I think I'll be able to get more blogs and pictures up over the next few days. Thanks for your patience!! Love ya!
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