A Lesson in Packing in Mammoth Cave, KY

I wish I could tell you that everything went exactly according to plan on this day.  But it didn't.  It went exactly according to the plan that happens when nothing goes according to plan.  At the first sign of that, I start letting go of my expectation about how things are 'supposed' to turn out and start paying attention to how they are going to turn it.

It was time for another life lesson.  And you just can't rush those things.

This time it was about packing -- or more precisely unpacking.  So many lessons, really.  For instance, it is handy to have a little peak in the middle of your pack so the rain rolls off the pack instead of pools.  If you haven't done that, then unpacking the pack -- even if you're unpacking to make it more organized -- is really a two person job when it has been raining.  Otherwise, all the water that pooled up runs into the pack, and the stuff that would have been dry is now all wet.

The short story is we are now better packed, more streamlined, more organized -- and still stuffed to the gills.  And I wonder about the lesson that awaits us when we reopen the pack again after wet stuff has been up there for a day or two.

The weather is much colder that we expected.  Lots of rain and winds up to 50 mph lured us off the camping schedule and into the hotel.  I told the boys I drew the line at camping in a thunderstorm, but really wind and rain will do me in, too.

Mammoth Cave was, well, mammoth!  No mammoth remains for those of you interested in paleontology.  But there are anthropological records of people using the caves as early as 1000 BC. Though we didn't have the privilege of seeing it, there are prehistoric drawings on the wall.  And an American version of the Iceman was found here in the 1935; the dessicated, mummified remains of an early American who was killed by a falling rock.

The tour was much more sedate than yesterday's, but still great.  Huge .. 400 miles of tunnels in five tiers of earth.   Temperature is a constant 54 degrees.  Humidity 85%.  Again, the moisture is caught in the reflection of the flash.

We are napping in Tennessee tonight.  Tomorrow we will start exploring the Natchez Trace Trail capped with a southern hospitality with family in Mississippi.