Mammoth Goes Birding…and stuff, Day 5

Saturday, April 12

We remained in place to give our driver and passenger a rest, so today’s agenda was a day trip to Mammoth Cave National Park to hike some of the little trails. Our first trail took us down to a cave opening, which I think might have been the original opening. People were coming out of it from some tour or other. We weren’t allowed in, of course.

Then we went on around a circle toward a scenic overlook that another male hiker said was well worth the climb. We got almost up to it and gave up. The uphills were proving too challenging. I regretted not going on almost immediately, but that was the way it needed to be.

 Got to the river, but not the overlook:

Then we drove over to a walk around a big sinkhole and probably a lot of little ones. It was lovely.  No birds, though. I heard a Louisiana Waterthrush but never could get sight of him. My experience with them is that they sit perfectly still while they’re singing, and the only way I managed to stalk one before is that I found two of them singing back and forth at each other, and the one nearest me was gradually moving up the hill—probably to get closer to his rival.

But the big beautiful trees!  Magnificent. Mostly leafless. Both dogwood and redbud were in bloom, which is funny because at home my redbud blooms a lot earlier.

For dinner we made some excellent Poke. We tweaked the recipe a little, but only by adding in the extra ingredients up front rather than using them as toppings to each serving.

 

REVIEW: Dino Valley RV Park  $62

Convenient; not so cheap; but location!

For a trip to Mammoth Cave National Park, this is pretty unbeatable. We stayed at a different RV park in the area last time, but it was crowded and uncomfortable. This was neither.

It’s all lumpy gravel surfaces but there is plenty of green grass between the sites to keep it cool and not too parking lot-ish. It’s a little hard to walk on but it drains well. There are no frills other than a cleared walking path through the field.   FHU sites; no problems with the utilities. 

There were only a few other RVs there when we stayed in April, which made us feel just the slightest bit exposed and leery about leaving the RV for a day trip. But nothing happened and there were no strange people hanging around, which happens at private parks sometimes. Probably just my normal paranoia—ignore it.  Some of the RVs were older and appeared to be seasonal, but not junky.  The grounds were very clean.  The manager on site and the person who took my reservation were both very nice.

If you use google maps to navigate to it, be aware that google takes you to Dinosaur World which is in front of the park and does NOT connect to the entrance. Stay on Route 70 a little bit farther west until you see the sign for the park, then you take a left turn into the entrance.

The Watermill Restaurant across the street does an okay breakfast buffet with great biscuits and cooked apples. The eggs are horrible and the coffee kind of blah.