We Should Never Have Gone to Mammoth Caves
In the late Spring of 2019, I was pregnant with my first (and only) child. My husband and I decided to go on a road trip from South Jersey to New Orleans and back before we couldn’t travel for a while. One might question the logic of going to New Orleans when one can’t drink with reckless abandon, and, looking back, drinking certainly would have made Bourbon Street more tolerable. I remember going to Cafe du Monde for Obligatory Beignets and noticing that everything there was covered in haphazard powdered sugar and smelled of urine. “Man, I would really enjoy a drink to distract me from all the sugar covered pee,” I thought, and in that moment I understood this cultural aspect of NOLA better than before. And really, what is the purpose of travel if not for cultural exchange and understanding?
I got many lessons on culture while there. At one point I was waiting for my husband to get some kind of frozen spirit concoction at one of the many stands around and a drunk dude came up to me as I was there, leaned against a table. “Do you know where the bathroom is?” he asked, with slurred speech. I looked confused and said “Your guess is as good as mine, but from the looks of it, everywhere.” He laughed and steadied himself against the table. “You looked like you would know. You looked like you’re working.”
Now, I know that I have that look about me in general. Once when I was at a new job for a scant 3 months, 20-plus year “veterans” came to me asking how age old processes worked there. I suppose I have always had that Wise Sage Energy.
But I’m pretty sure that guy was suggesting that I was a prostitute. Which, rude. But also, how dare you interrupt me while I am working?!
Later my husband and I would go on a delightful kayak tour of a swamp led by an ecology-minded hippie. We befriended a tiny frog who hung out on our boat the whole time. We named him Tupelo. We did not get attacked by any alligators, thank you very much. We asked the Eco Hippie where else we should go while there for a day and he suggested 1. A plantation where we could go be sad and guilt-ridden about our G-D whiteness (again and in perpetuity) and a hole in the wall Po’boy joint that only locals go to.
We decided to pass on the plantation (so sue us), but we did go to the restaurant. We walked into the place and saw that they were also a crab shack sometimes. My husband is a great fan of blue crabs and we were interested to learn that blue crabs are not only a Chesapeake Bay delicacy. As such, he attempted to order some blue crabs as part of our lunch. The exchange with the server went something like this:
My Husband (MH): Do you have blue crabs?
Server: Yes. Cole.
MH: Excuse me?
Server: Cole.
MH: I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Do you have blue crabs?
Server: Yes. They’re cole.
MH: I don’t know what you mean by “cole”.
Server: They are COLE. They were cooked yesterday and are on ice now.
MH: Oh! They’re COLD. OK, that’s fine. How many come in an order?
Server: How many you want?
MH: Can we order in any number or do you have to do, say, 3 or 6[1].
Server: Just order what you want.
MH: OK…I’ll take 5.
Server: Anything else?
Me: Can we also get a fish Po’Boy?
Server: You want it dressed?
Me: Is it possible to get all that on the side? I like remoulade but it’s not his thing.
Server:...
Me: Can I do that?
Server: It’s all mixed in though.
Me: So, no? I can’t have this on the side? I guess we’ll go with “undressed” then.
Server:...You two aren’t from around here, are you?
Me: …Nope, we are not, obviously.
Server: Well, you should know that we make crabs different around here, too. We put the Old Bay in the water with ‘em while they’re cooking. They just put it on top of them after cooking in Maryland.
She looked at us like she assumed this was a deal breaker for us and when we accepted the terms she looked relieved and confused. Honestly, I expected her to say something like “they’re not actually crabs. Crawfish only here!” Once she explained the difference in cooking/seasoning methods, we actually thought that it sounded like a pretty effective way of seasoning the crabs. The whole “put a pile of spice blend on top of a cooked crab’s carapace” has always seemed a little odd to me, but I’m not a particular fan of picking crabs so what do I know?
The food was fine. To be honest, I wasn’t into any of it because I was pregnant, not feeling particularly well ever and was tired of menus being comprised almost entirely of bottom feeders from various bodies of water. My husband also was not particularly wowed by anything we ate and we made a point that we would not take the recommendations of ecology-minded hippies (who are probably transplants) who lead their suggestions with “on your vacation, go feel sad at a plantation museum first” seriously in the future.
Muffaletta sandwiches are tasty though. Good bread, olive tapenade, and not a bottom feeder in sight! What more could anyone ask for?
We left New Orleans probably long after we had our fill of New Orleans. We left to make our way back up north. This meant that we had to spend a night in Alabama somewhere and my husband and I had a policy about picking places to stop in Mississippi and Alabama: you can’t go wrong with a town that has a good science museum in it. In Mississippi, we stopped for a few hours to check out a museum attached to one of NASA’s rocket testing locations. For Alabama, we decided to spend the night in Huntsville, where Space Camp/Tranquility Base is and enjoy the science museum there. We also happened to be there when the local art museum had their “come hang out in the museum after hours and sip a glass of cheap wine!” night. The museum was surprisingly great with lots of interesting exhibits and a nice staff. The children’s room was really very cool, too. It had a giant transparent color wheel in front of a window and you pulled cranks to superimpose different colors. I could have played with that all night.
After the art museum, it was time for dinner and we opted to wait for a table at the neat looking al fresco-ish restaurant attached to the museum. Once seated, we perused the menu and saw that they offered a charcuterie plate and we were sold. “We’re so cultured,” we said, sitting in a restaurant at an art museum about to order fine meats and cheeses.
I’ll cut to the chase: My husband and I have a habit of calling charcuterie boards “Adult Lunchables”[2]. This is because it’s usually very fancy cheese and cured meats and various hoighty-toighty accoutrements. But this time, we were truly served a hilarious charcuterie plate that could honestly be called “Adult Lunchables”. It had standard lunch meat on it (turkey and ham, maybe even bologna…but I might be exaggerating there) and deli cheese like swiss and Unexciting Cheddar. The crackers were Ritz and the whole thing was $25 and the most expensive thing on the menu. I guess I’m sounding like a snob here but their idea of artful display was cutting cheese slices into triangles.
Of course, one time I was talking to a friend about this triple creme brie they sell at Wegman’s and I said, “Yeah, it’s the ONLY brie I buy,” so maybe I’m the problem actually. To be fair, after I said that, I thought about it for a minute and said “Jesus Christ, what an asshole!” about myself. So, like, I get it[3]. But still, it’s difficult not to feel a little had by the the charcuterie plate, knowing that they charged $25 Fancy Tourists at the Art Museum Fee for lunch meat turkey and Ritz crackers.
After the night of the Art Museum Lunchables Cheese Plate, we got out of Huntsville to continue our drive back home. It was during this next leg of the trip that we got the idea to check out Mammoth Caves.
You like that? This whole long preamble to get to the actual subject of this review? You probably thought this was just a review of New Orleans or “The South” as a whole. But no! That was just context.
You see, our trip down south was filled with varying degrees of wonder and disappointment. Our aggregate experience up until then was one of “well, hey, at least we have some stories”. I came away from that thinking that, much like when Dave Matthews fans say that a show they went to was the best of their lives, the answer to the questions, “OK, but did someone pass you a doob while you were in your lawn seats? And upon smoking that complementary doob, were you pretty stoned for the show?” is “Oh, 100%”, people who consider their week in New Orleans as one of the greatest of their lives were probably pretty drunk the whole time (and considerably more into jazz than me). New Orleans is not for everyone and as a person who can take or leave most jazz and couldn’t, at the time, imbibe as necessary, it was not for me.
It was also 90-something degrees and roughly 100% humidity the whole time. Mistakes were made in the planning of this trip, to be sure. At one point, we went to go check out the Lafitte swamp national park, which consisted of a boardwalk path through what seemed to be really cool but interminable swamp land, and at some point I was honestly worried I was going to pass out. This would have been particularly bad news because there was an alligator just hanging out at the path’s edge. Sure, they were just below the boardwalk and probably don’t typically jump, but I didn’t really need the chance of an old gator getting new scales and choosing to eat my face once I fell over.
So we said “screw this,” and turned around and decided to go watch John Wick 4 in a giant air-conditioned AMC. We stopped at a Piggly-Wiggly on the way for obligatory movie candy and, while there, learned that in Louisiana, you can get Larry the Cable Guy branded mac and cheese.
See? Cultural exchange!
Anyway, as I said, this is NOT a review of New Orleans. I swear[4]!
It’s just a foil. Because you might be thinking, how could a national park attraction be worse than everything you just described? And perhaps it wasn’t worse, per se. But I found it utterly shocking that an impressive cave system preserved by Theodore Roosevelt THE Bull Moose himself[5], could be such a garbage part of our long and storied road trip. And therefore, if you “do the math,” the grandiosity and majesty of the caves divided by the utter incompetence and crappiness of the mandatory tour, results in a pretty abysmal Garbage Quotient.
So, my husband and I are on our drive and we’re trying to figure out where to stop next. I started looking around on maps and seeing what “attraction” signs on the road had to say. We stumbled upon Mammoth Caves. A national park right on our route!
I went to the website and discovered that you weren’t allowed to just go check them out. You see, it was a big cave, one might even describe it as elephantine[6]. They couldn’t allow you just to go in there. Which, while I am being flippant here, I do actually understand. It’s dark with some narrow shafts and people, including, at times, my husband and I, are morons and if people regularly drown in hot springs in Yellowstone, then someone is going to fall down a hole in a big ol’ cave in the dark.
So, because of this, you had to sign up for a tour. And because the caves are so big, the tour size capacity is similarly big, so the smallest tour you could join was 80 people.
My husband did not think this boded well for the experience. “Oh god, you have to join a tour with 80 people? I think that’s going to be pretty terrible.” I knew he was likely right, but there wasn’t really anywhere else cool to stop on our current route and surely the awesomeness of a giant cave system would outweigh the terribleness of a tour. Think of the stalactites! The stalagmites even!
Knowing it was a gamble, I threw caution to the wind and bought our tour passes.
We arrived at the park’s welcome center and found that it was teeming with tourists. I bought the passes online but we of course had to go get in a line to get paper passes. Waiting experience #1!
This is when we learned that we needed the paper passes to show the tour guides so that we could get on the bus. “Oh, no…a bus is required?” my husband said. “Yes…” We considered bailing at that point but still had no other grand alternative plans, so we pushed ahead. We were told to go to the bus stop.
The bus stop was huge and once again teeming with tourists. Waiting Experience #2! Once a critical mass was gathered, a park ranger appeared to speak to us without amplification. He stood on a cement block and spoke as loud as he could to go over safety tips. He tried to be funny and charming but a lot of it was lost due to his lack of megaphone. “It’s dark in there! There will be areas where we have to walk single file! Keep an eye on your kids! We’ll be making frequent stops so don’t worry if walking too hard!”
My husband and I looked at each other at that last part. “Oh no…frequent stops?” “Yes.” Again, we considered bailing but went against our better instincts and, eventually, got on the tour bus.
The bus ride was 20 minutes or so, which felt interminable. The tour guide tried to entertain us with anecdotes and quips but ultimately, we were going to a big hole in the ground without a particularly interesting history. Finally, the bus stopped and we all got off and gathered at the cave entrance.
The park ranger then stood up in front of us all and proceeded to give us ANOTHER safety talk. Honestly, up to this point, I felt for the guy. Safety talks like this are usually born out of necessity because there were actual examples of kids falling down holes or old people passing out in dark caverns full of stale air. Fine. You have to cover your ass. But then…then he lost me.
He proceeded to explain that he was actually a substitute tour guide. The guy who usually led the tour was a geologist and so it was usually really focused on the geology and science of the caves. Our substitute guide, however, was not a scientist but instead a historian and, according to him, the tour would be way less boring because of it. None of that science stuff, but so much of the rich and interesting history!
So…you know what the only truly interesting thing about caves is? THE GEOLOGY. That’s it. You go into these things to look around at cool rock formations and, if you are a nerd like me (and if you signed up to go tour a cave, you probably are at least somewhat of a nerd like me), you are interested in understanding things like mineral deposits and what causes all the colors in the formations. There are all kinds of different forms of rocks down there and they tell a story about the formation and evolution of the planet. If taught to you by someone who loves it, this isn’t boring. And honestly, if you’re bored thinking about the science of this grandiose cavern you’re standing in, then you’re the one who’s boring.
Hey, stop stuffing me into this locker!
Back when I was in middle and highschool, I had this general philosophy of “well, I have to be here, so I may as well pay attention and learn something” most of the time.
I said, stop stuffing me into this locker! JEEZ!
I am simply mentioning this because I’ll give anyone a shot at making me interested in what they want to tell me about. But I’ll tell you that all I remember about the “really captivating and important history” of Mammoth Caves from this guy was that there were two old timey “cave developers” trying to cash in on that hot tourism money in the 1800s. One guy found an entrance first and was raking it in. Another guy wanted in on that action but the first guy said NO, this is MY giant hole in the ground to exploit for fortune and glory. The other guy said, “FINE, I will find my OWN Glory Hole!” and a while later, he found another entrance and tourists started making it rain on him instead.
Please note that the way I just explained that completely run of the mill “1800s shoddy businessman feud” was considerably more interesting than what the guy actually said[7]. I barely remembered what he talked about and had to review the national parks website to find it. If you are interested in the history of Mammoth Caves, feel free to visit this website because, oh boy, is there a lot of uninteresting facts and shoe horning of the Important Roles various previously massively oppressed demographics played in the history of this pit in Kentucky. History & Culture - Mammoth Cave National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Admittedly, I did not look extensively into this reservoir of information because, frankly, I didn’t care all that much. However, I took a cursory look at some of the sections, including the illustrious history of women in the caves. My favorite bit was at the very beginning of the section where it talks about how not much is known about the earliest days of people exploring the caves, but archeologists have analyzed fossilized shit - paleofeces[8] - and discovered that the genetic markers left behind…were probably men…but it’s inconclusive! So, ancient human men AND women might have shat in those very caves. Thus enter women into the chat, I guess.
The next part shows that early lady tourists graffitied walls just as well as some damn MAN could do. And the rest was about how at some point they made enslaved people, many of whom were women, come and give cave tours to white tourists. There was a period where seemingly no tours were going on - roughly 1861 through 1866 - just a coincidence, I am sure. But during that time, no notable things were done in the caves by enslaved people or women or anyone really due to some other pressing engagement[9].
After I read these historical blurbs and confirmed that the most notable thing was that whole Dynamite BONANZA: The Bushy Mustachioed Businessman Battle for Profit hullabaloo, I realized I had fallen completely into the park rangers trap 6 years later. I was learning. Dagnabbit!
OK, I am done throwing a hat on the ground and stomping on it with my foot in a fit of prospector rage. Back to that fateful day.
So, we stand there at the cave entrance and listen to the park ranger tell us about how science is boring and then he tells us safety stuff again. Then it was finally time to go into the caves. Much of the tour was walking in a line down skinny stairwells and then getting funneled into large caverns. Because the stairwells were so narrow, this was done in single file and you had to wait around for a while as everyone in the group of 80 caught up. To begin, it took an impressive amount of time just to get to the door to the cave. Yes, there was a metal door much like one you would see to enter into a public school at the entrance to the cave.
My husband and I were wandering along and all was well, until we overheard the dude behind us in line clearly hitting on the woman behind us. They were not there together, both seemingly exploring this natural wonder on their own. They were both young, probably early 20’s. Long story short, this guy was so insufferable. He was a pilot, apparently, and was going on about all the places he flies. The woman was like “wow, that’s cool…” and then later said “I want to visit Prague.” The dude proceeds to go into a monologue about how he’s just not that Into Cities, you know? They’re all the same. And it really came off like he had read The Game and this was his attempt at a neg. The woman says, “Oh, well, it wasn’t completely destroyed in WWII, so it’s all still original and ancient. That’s pretty unique.” And the dude says something like “Oh, uh, well, yeah, I guess that would be cool…”
It went on like this for the entire slow mosey to the cave door. My husband and I kept giving each other “can you believe this guy?” looks and when there came an opportunity for him and I to hide against a wall in the stairwell to let them pass us, my husband made sure we took it. We breathed sighs of relief as we entered the first giant cavern.
Admittedly, the cavern was pretty neat. It didn’t have any of the rock formations that the cave system was known for really, but it was impressive in height and it was also very pleasant in there. It was humid that day “top side” and this was a nice relief. But then we had to wait for 15 minutes while everyone else caught up and took seats on benches. Then the park ranger told his assistant to turn off the electric lights that were on and the ranger lit a candle. “This is all the light they had back then!”
Maybe it’s too much screen time or something but buddy, I think we know that caves are dark and that candles are pretty ineffective. I appreciated what he was trying to do, but he gave so much warning and preamble to this and then the lesson was just “Man, candles are stupid. Thank goodness for light bulbs.” Then he tried to give us some half-assed geology information, frequently reminding us that he is not a geologist and doesn’t actually know anything about the rocks down here.
We did this routine two more times I think, though each subsequent stop had way more interesting stuff to look at. However, each time we stopped and waited the obligatory 15 minutes or so for everyone caught up, we would get whatever uninteresting information the guy wanted to share and then…then he would ask if anyone had any questions. He always added something like “If no one has any questions, we’ll move on to the next part of the tour.” And someone ALWAYS had another question. “So, uh, what’s that over there? Some kind of rock? Is it…uh…sedimentary?” or “Did the cave explorers use…pickaxes…or just their BARE HANDS?” Listen, this guy doesn’t know about the rocks. He told you that so anything he tells you right now will be lies. And, bro, I know you don’t actually care. You just don’t feel like walking anymore. Stop punishing the rest of us with your insincere quest for knowledge.
In all honesty, the caves really were beautiful and ultimately worth seeing. Had we a bit more flexibility to our scheduling, it would have been better to have tried to take one of the other kinds of tours they had. There were smaller group tours, and ones that were specifically more focused on, you know, the rocks. During this tour, the park ranger could barely muster the energy to say something cool like “Behold! The GYPSUM!” and really, the biggest crime to me is that if you hate the subject matter you are being forced to teach on the tour you volunteered to give, have fun with it. Which, I suppose, the guy tried to do but he lacked the heart. Well, he had the heart, but he didn’t have the soul. No wait, he had the heart and soul, but he didn’t have THE TALENT[10].
Admittedly, I haven’t looked into all this geology I keep saying I want to know about, and honestly, that’s because I would prefer someone who is into it tell me about it. Sure, I can read a book, but I like a performance. Having someone tell you about something they love because they want you to know about it (and not because they want you to know they know about it) is a superior form of education for me and I will take it every time. And I will both remember you and I will remember the content you shared for years to come what it is told to me with passion!
For instance, recently my husband and I were at our town’s annual charity poker tournament and this guy shows up whom we hadn’t seen in like a decade or more. I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, but I remembered his face and one very peculiar thing about him. I leaned over to my husband and said “Hey, isn’t that the guy who used to hang out with our friend who did his entire graduate thesis about James K. Polk?” “What?” “Yeah, that was the guy who was just really into Polk. I talked to him about him for an hour once at a party!” Later, this particular gentleman sat at my husband’s table and he took the opportunity to find out if this was the Polk guy and he was! And I think he was impressed and a bit honored that this was how we remembered him. So, this is my point: sharing things you care about with passion is how you connect and get through to others. In this case, literally no one else in my entire life other than my 11th grade history teacher ever mentioned James K. Polk in conversation. And certainly no one else had ever spoken about him with such interest. This guy’s Polk conversation with me at that part in, like 2011, made such an impression on me, that a few years later when on a cross-country road trip, we had the opportunity to stop and look at Polk’s tomb sitting there in the middle of Nashville and we went “Hell yeah! That dude told us Polk was a pretty interesting guy!” And it was only fair since we had visited Taft’s house a few days earlier.
As for the review part of this review, I feel that many elements need to be rated separately:
- The Caves Themselves: 4 out of 5 stars
- The Tour Guide: 2 out of 5 stars
- The Rest of the People on the Tour: 2 out of 5 stars
As mentioned earlier, the caves themselves were pretty excellent. I gave 4 out of 5 stars because the really cool stuff took a while to get to. This is different than, say, Yosemite, where the minute you drive into the valley there you are greeted with breathtaking views of El Capitan and Half Dome.
The tour guide gets a couple of stars, mainly because he did try. I gave the rest of the tourists the same rating as the tour guide because while it was their job to make the tour good, they could have at least done their best not to make it worse. It’s true that the douchey pilot behind us in line early in the tour brought down the crowd’s score, and maybe that’s not fair. But life isn’t fair.
In conclusion, everything I’ve talked about in this piece is worth seeing and experiencing for yourself. You might be more optimistic than me! You will probably go when you aren’t encumbered by a health condition that greatly reduces your ability to enjoy the various absurdities we encountered. And ultimately, I would still probably give this entire trip 5 out of 5 stars because having this many stories to tell all these years later is very worth it to me, personally.
Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Endnotes
[1]For the uninitiated, in Maryland, one orders crabs to pick in certain multiples. You don’t tend to order them one by one. This is apparently not how they do it in Louisiana and I guess this is one of those States Rights thing they are always on about down here.
[2]When we say “Adult Lunchables”, we don’t generally mean something like those parties where they serve sushi rolls off of a naked woman. I would probably call the sushi thing something like “Lunchables after Dark. Follow me for more marketing ideas!
[3]But, look, if you’re going to buy brie, don’t waste your time on anything other than triple creme brie, folks. I would specify that it should come from Wegman’s, but I’ve had great triple creme brie from Trader Joe’s as well.
[4]But for context, the Lafitte Swamp National Park visit was considerably better than our visit to Mammoth Caves. That’s right: a swamp park in 90 degree weather in 100% relative humidity, where alligators just kind of hung out with their prehistoric killing machine mouths inches away from visitors’ feet, where I came dangerously close to passing out under the weight of my physical condition and poor decisions, was more enjoyable and enriching than the G-D cave tour.
[5] OK, not actually, but his LEGACY did it…it was actually finally made a national park in 1941, so it was a different Roosevelt who gets the credit, I guess.
[6]Insert “Pun Husky Meme” here.
[7]He definitely didn’t mention glory holes AT ALL and that’s a damn wasted opportunity.
[8] I am a simple person with simple pleasures and I laughed for many, many minutes at the concept of paleofeces.
[9] I was disappointed that I found no history of note about the caves during the Civil War because I really hoped that there would be a tale of a group of rebels called The Cave Bottom Boys. Or a Union soldier who deserted and lived out the rest of the war in the cave and locals turned him into a Legendary Cryptid like Big Foot.
[10] This is a quote from South Park’s Chef from their “You Got Served” episode. And, if I am being honest, this entire review is inspired by another South Park episode called “We Should Never Have Gone Ziplining”. My literary inspirations are highly refined.