This morning we took another tour of Mammoth, this one through the "New Entrance," a man-made entrance created by an entrepreneur who saw an opportunity to make tourist dollars by offering tours to the part of Mammoth Cave under his land. Since this is not a natural opening, the NPS has installed an airlock to minimize ecological effects of surface air entering the cave. The tour begins with a descent of 280 steps, to an area 250 feet below the surface.
 Bus ride to the New Entrance |  Narrow passages, low ceilings are par for the course |
We were in a smaller group today and stayed at the front with Ranger Dave. He shared a great deal of geological knowledge about the cave with us. He started at the park as an archeologist, and told us that the tour guides are encouraged to do their own research and develop their own talks to share with visitors.
Also, the FFA group on this tour was well behaved and not nearly as noisy as the kids on yesterday's tour. We discovered that the reason for so many FFA groups is that there's a national FFA convention starting today in Indianapolis, and groups are stopping here on their way to Indiana.
 Wow! |  More wows |
Today's tour was both informative and another awe-inspiring experience. It included the Frozen Niagara area of the cave, which is where most of the stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, soda straws, draperies, and other formations are found. We also saw a cave cricket, a surprisingly large insect. Crickets are described as "trogloxenes"--cave visitors--since they leave the cave at night to find food. It seemed amazing to us that the cricket could find its way out of the cave from deep within where we saw it.
We spent the afternoon doing research and making calls and reservations to set up the next few weeks of our trip. We are disappointed that we will not get to see Mia and the rest of the Sampietro family this trip--they've just had company and are feeling like another visit would be too much, especially since Mia is working after school and on Saturdays. Fortunately we will be able to see John and Loretta--we're taking them to Mazzio's Sunday for lunch. Loretta is in Austin being a nanny for their grandson, Joseph, but is coming to Nac for the weekend, though she may return later Sunday.
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