Mammoth Cave Photos

Here's some pictures from Mammoth Cave in Kentucky--Scott chose the pictures, but it became my job to label them. Here we are at the entrance. I did get a stamp in my national park passport!

I had visited the cave before on a family vacation. I think it was the summer right before 7th grade. Scott hadn't been there before.

We took the Historic tour, which is just over 2 hours, and about 2 miles. This is the historic entrance to the cave. During the War of 1812, they person that owned the cave used slaves to mine nitrite in the cave to be used as gunpowder. They used the hollowed out trunks of poplar trees as a pipe system to bring water into the cave to flush it out. Many of the poplar trunks and some of the mining equipment is still in the front part of the cave.This is the "butterscotch pudding" formation in the Mammoth Cavern. This cave was formed by the flowing of an underground river, and it is mostly dry now, so there aren't relaly stalagmites or stalactities.
This was one of my favorite parts of the tour--Fat Man's Misery. It was originally filled with sand, and in the early days of tourism in the cave they dug out the sand, and there was a nice pathway in the rock! However, it is thin, and it gets low!

Maybe it should be Fat & Tall Man's Misery!

This was what they originally called the Bottomless Pit. When they first led tours, it was by torch light, so they couldn't see to the bottomw. When they dropped burning paper, they would land in water or sand, so they never heard anything land, and thought it was bottomless. Now we know better.Hey, it's a picture with Scott! Somehow when Scott chooses the pictures, they are mostly of me...

The night before Scott and I went to Mammoth Cave, we had a conversation at supper about dairy cows. Lance mentioned that he has always wondered what happened to dairy cows when they were past their prime. I don't have a lot of farm experience, so I couldn't answer. On the way home from the Cave, we saw a sign by the side of the road that explained it all:

It smells good!

This weekend Scott has his 2nd to last drill weekend ever for the Army Reserves. He just received his orders this week for retirement, and the date is Dec. 31, 2009. He will have one more drill weekend next month, and will have to unload his locker and bring everything home after about 14 years with this unit in Ames. He is looking forward to the free time, but after 22 years, I'm sure that NOT going to drill every month will be strange.

Today I am baking rolls for both the Platt family Thanksgiving on Thursday, and the Evenhouse family Thanksgiving on Sunday. I made 3 different kinds of rolls, and some french bread. Yum!

Tomorrow is tryouts for volleyball. I'm working with the Osky HS coach, and the William Penn University coach to start a new, regional club team. I am not coaching, as I don't want to make that big of a time commitement, but I am doing the admin stuff. I'm very excited!

Last week we took a trip to Kentucky to spend a few days with Lance (Scott's brother) & Dorothy, and Esther, Hannah, and our other new nephew Nathan. I will post some pictures eventually--they are all on Scott's computer, which is with Scott!

leaves, leaves, leaves

The last couple of weekends have involved a lot of stuff with leaves. We have a large yard with a number of mature trees, and all the leaves have fallen!

Over Halloween weekend my nieces Rhea and Olivia (4 and 2) spent Friday night with us so my sister could go to the State XC tournament. We watched Backyardigans on Friday night, and this was about the calmest they were the whole time... We had pancakes for breakfast on Saturday.
Then we walked to the poste office, and then played in the leaves. We raked up a little pile on the side of the house. Rhea loved it, but apparently Olivia doesn't like getting dirty, and never wanted to go in the pile of leaves.

Leaves are fun!!

We took the girls back to Pella in the evening, but dressed them up in their Halloweed costumes first. All the nieces went as "Barbie and the Three Muskateers."

This past weekend, we watched the Iowa football game on Saturday (first loss of the season), then burned a large pile of leaves. We still had a humongous pile of leaves next to the house, another huge pile on the other side of the sidewalk, and another huge one by the street. On Sunday we borrow a truck and after 4 loads had the pile next to the house gone. We aren't quite sure when or if we will be getting rid of the rest of the leaves.