Thursday we left Illinois for our short day of driving and went on to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Once there we set up our tent (in the least crowded campground we had been in yet, likely due to the fact that there was a hotel attached to the Visitor's Center) and picked out which hike we wanted to do. There were so many to choose from, and so many of them sounded fun! Some were super intense (like you needed specific shoes and pants to even go on them) but others there were only a couple like that. We chose to do the Historic Tour, and our guide was awesome! He was the fourth or fifth generation of his family to be giving tours of Mammoth Cave (which is the longest cave in the world, 300+ miles of discovered cave), so he really knew his stuff. The tour was about 2 hours long and took us through the four biggest rooms in Mammoth Cave (in which church services were sometimes held because there was so much room) and through a stretch of cave called "Fat Man's Misery, Tall Man's Agony," during which we literally had to crawl through at parts because the ceiling was so low and the walk way was so small!
Even though both of our cameras died about half way through, we had a lot of fun exploring the cave and we both agreed it was someplace we wanted to return to some day.
After the tour we ate dinner at the restaurant attached to the hotel, but since it didn't fill us up and we didn't have cell phone service anywhere in the park, we decided to drive to the next town over to get ice cream & make some calls. Gotta love Dairy Queen!
Friday morning we were going to do this hike along the water, but it was raining and we figured we were going to loose another hour with the time change anyway, so we decided to get on the road.
We stopped and had brunch at a Waffle House because UD had never been to one, it was the only chain restaurant/food place we stopped at during the whole trip other than In-N-Out Burger (which doesn't really count because it's a west coast thing) the whole trip! So we were pretty proud of that because we really wanted to experience the different local cuisine in each place.
After getting into Ohio we stopped at the US Air Force Museum. We got there two hours before it closed and there was so much to see we missed an entire room, but it was still really awesome. I learned so much and got some really great pictures, so I was glad that UD wanted to stop there because it was definitely a place I wouldn't think to stop at if I was traveling on my own.
That night we stopped in Zanesville, Ohio. Seeing as though it's an hour east of a big city (Columbus) there wasn't a lot of options food wise so we went to Tumbleweed Southwest Grill for dinner. Afterwords, we stopped over at Steak & Shakes to get a milkshake. The only disappointing thing about the evening was that my Peanut Butter Milkshake was just a vanilla milkshake with a few Reece's PB Cups in it...haha.
Saturday morning we got up and made our way to where UD lives in Stewartstown, PA. The day went off without a hitch (except for when we almost lost the ticket for the toll road, but no worries, we found it under the seat) and we got to his house around 2:30. The rest of the day I caught up on some shows and hung out with my Aunt Lori and their two little chihuahua dogs.
This morning I got up and headed home! It's great to be back and I am so blessed to have had two successful trips across country and an amazing semester in Los Angeles! :)
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