Mammoth Cave

This week, from Thursday to Saturday, Adam and I were in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky with a portion of the Cox family. We had so much fun doing cave tours, hiking, eating, and going to the souvenir shop more than four times (it wasn't for me, it was for the kids!). There was so much that went on in those three days that I'm just going to give a list of my top 8 trip highlights (in no particular order):

1. Mammoth Cave: kind of self-explanatory I guess, but did you know its the biggest cave in the entire world??? The WORLD. Like, the ENTIRE WORLD.

2. Sinkhole exploring: The destination of one of our hikes was a giant sinkhole (Cedar Sink). It was crazy! And the craziest part was that we went all the way into the bottom of it! And once at the bottom of it we realized how cool this thing really was, it was like descending further into the core of the earth like in Journey to the Center of the Earth. It was incredible!

3. Trying to get out of the sinkhole: After realizing how cool the sinkhole was we realized that the signs that said "don't go off the marked trail" were serious and we weren't quite sure how to get out. I used a fallen tree as my way up the completely mud-covered hill and nearly lost a shoe in the process, but I felt pretty accomplished once I was done!

4. Following 3 deer in front of our hotel room: Our hotel was literally on the edge of the national park and one morning Adam and Samantha and I left our room to find the others and we spotted three deer just chillin in front of our room. Sam kept getting closer to them and occasionally they would look up and stare at her with the signature 'deer in headlights' look and then keep chewing. They almost let her get right next to them! Adam caught it all on video, it was great

5. Dramamine-induced productivity: I get car sick pretty easily these days on long trips so I took a dramamine before we left on our trip and I was able to read for my classes the whole way there and back! I got a lot done and slept a little too:)

6. Three trips to the Lincoln boyhood home: One of our stops on the way to Mammoth Cave was Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. We liked it so much we went back two or three times (the left-behind backpack and needed passport stamp were part of the reason too)

7. Spending time in nature: In general the whole trip I just enjoyed being outside, looking at the complexity and intrigue of nature. There's nothing to figure out or to understand, its simple and beautiful and not-so-simple and not-so-pretty (I'm mainly speaking of the millipede) and I love all of that about it. Nature is a great place and I wish we spent more time together but my grades probably wouldn't appreciate that, so I'll just relish in the time we had together and say "we'll always have Mammoth Cave." C'est la vie

8. Making a new traveling tradition: In one of our many trips to the gift shop Adam and I decided that we are going to be magnet collectors:) Its not lame, I swear. We are going to fill our fridge with magnets from all the places we go together in our wonderful and adventurous life and we are super excited! Our Mammoth Cave one is already up too!