Kentucky and Reaching New York

First off, Blogger is being a bit testy and won't let me post pictures. I'm not that concerned about it for this post because my Kentucky pictures aren't anything to write home about, but I have the cutest picture of my 2 year old nephew trying his first piece of sushi this weekend. I can't post it, but I promise you, he is the cutest!

Back to Kentucky... The last stop on my trip was Mammoth Cave NP, the largest known cave in the world. It was only a 1+ hour drive from Nashville, which was so nice, but I was thrown for a loop once I arrived. My automatic windows decided they wanted to stop working, or at least only work sporadically. This is a problem when your AC does not work as well. I managed all right (although now my car is confined to the garage because it is taking forever to get the $400 part to fix it and it is way too hot to drive around with no air and no open windows), but things were tense for a little bit.

At Mammoth I took the Intro to Caving Tour, a 3 hour tour where you climb and crawl through portions of the cave that "normal" visitors never see. My brother has done a lot of splunking and claims it is the most thrill thing he has ever done (and he has done a lot of adrenaline pumping things). I'd have to agree, it is pretty darn cool! It was totally at ease in the tight spaces and loved scrambling up the walls. Maybe I can find a splunking club back in Seattle?

I could have made it home in one (long) day after leaving Kentucky, but instead I opted to drive through West Virginia and Maryland and spend the night with a college friend. It was nice to relax, take a shower sans flip flops, and sleep in a comfy bed. The next morning I only had a 4 hour drive, on roads I had traveled on numerous times before. The 2 weeks on the road were great, but it was really nice to be home!