Today, we hit 2,000 miles!

We woke to steady rain and strong winds beating against the tent. Since it wasn’t far to Mammoth Caves, we decided to take it slowly to (hopefully) wait out the worst of it. So we packed up around nine and decided we would rather buy breakfast than cook in the rain, so we rode to a nearby truckstop for McDonald’s. After finding a spot for the bikes, Rachel went for her wallet, but it wasn’t in its normal spot. After checking all other likely spots, she determined she left it somewhere by accident. We remembered her using it at a convenience store ten miles back on the route last night; sure enough, when she called the store, the woman who answered confirmed that they had it. She had left it on a newspaper stand outside the store while we rested and had a few stacks. We rushed through our coffees and food and went back to the KOA, where Rachel dropped her bags and left me for a solo ride back to retrieve the forgotten wallet.

She returned only an hour or so later, and, by that time, the weather had calmed. We reloaded her bike and headed towards the national park.

En route we passed this sign for Big Mike’s Rock Shop, which we think a few of our friends would like to visit:

A half hour later, despite some light rain, we entered Mammoth Cave National Park. We hopped on some nice bike trails which took us to the visitor center.

Unfortunately all of the lantern tours were booked since it was a weekend, but we were happy to at least get in the historic and domes and dripstones tours instead. We’ll save the lantern tours and the wild tour for another trip!

        We really enjoyed our tour, and then had a nice, relaxing evening. After paying for the tours, we learned of Mammathon, a free cave walk, trail hike, and bike event, which is taking place tomorrow. We would have loved to participate in it, but unfortunately, we had already bought the tickets for a tour at that time. Maybe we can come back another year for it!

Trip stats, to date (Day 35)

• Horse Cave, KY to Mammoth Cave, KY
• Daily mileage: 18.9mi;  Trip total to date: 2,010.1mi
• Daily riding time: 1hr 40min;  Trip total time: 179hr 31min
• Daily ascent: 690ft;  Trip total ascent: 108,675ft
• Flat tires: Rachel – 1; Chris – 0