Goin' down to Kentucky
I packed all my camping shit into the car Friday morning in the rain and headed down to Kentucky to check out Mammoth Cave. Along the way I realized that 1)i'd of course managed to forget a bunch of stuff at home (typical!) 2)if it kept raining like this much longer I'd need to start collecting pairs of animals into my car and 3)it's a hella religious bible belt out there. I seriously wished I'd had a camera phone to take pictures of some road signs. My favorites were: "HELL IS REAL" in the middle of a corn field along I-71 and one with 5 out of 10 commandments chosen apparently at random on a sign surrounded by others advertising "ADULT books and video", "Gentlemen's club" and "XXX Dance parlor". Gotta love bible belt.
But it's all fun and games until somebody's eye gets poked out, or until my right to drink gets taken away. Now I'm by no means a big drinker, but I like to be able to enjoy a nice beer after I've driven for 7+ hours straight and especially after I hung out in the parking lot of the Mammoth Cave park visitors' center waiting for my friend Ben to get his ass to the park from Chicago (there was no cell phone reception and apparently the boy got lost. Anyway, picture this, two tired and hungry kids make it to a Walmart/supermarket with full intention of buying some alcohol to soothe the aching butts and are told that "this is a dry county". ARRRRRGH. At this point it's a matter of principle and we drive down to the next county (about 30 miles away) just to load up on the alcohol for the next couple of days. We were so pissed and hungry we almost got a speeding ticket (but thankfully got off with a "courtesy warning"... this would normally be accompanied by a comment about how i feel about cops. but in view of this unexpected lucky occurrence this shall be skipped.
The country around the park is a trip in itself: there are more "rock shops" than one would ever think would be necessary on the planet (who buys ROCKS??). Fortunately there was other stuff we could play with: (I got a block to sharpen my machete--yeah! i'm dangerous now!!! and a little folding knife for all those occasions when i just really want to have a knife. Just in case i turn into Doug and want to go around "killing shit", or just for making holes). There were a couple of fainting goats I got to chase around and try to startle, but they were not impressed with how scary I was. Come to think of it, neither was I. As it was, I did not manage to make them faint. They just laughed at me in their goat-fashion. I also got to go horseback riding for the first time EVER in my life! Which was fun even though I could feel my sitting bones for the next couple of days. Unfortunately we only got to walk the horses, none of the trotting or galloping or any of that crazy wild stuff.
As it happens, we got through three bottles of wine the night before doing the wild cave tour at Mammoth cave, which basically comes down to waking up with a hangover and feeling like hell, taking down camp and praying we didnt forget anything (oh yeah, i couldnt find my keys so i got the honors of waking up the whole camp-site just because the siren went off for a while. This is then followed by much undercaffeinated spelunking (gotta love that word!!!!) for 6 hours and a drive back in the ridiculous rain for another 7 hours. In fact, I didnt make it. Around 50 miles from home i just had to stop and take a nap, because I was falling asleep on top of hydroplaning and that just seemed like badness waiting to happen. It was still raining when I got to Cleveland and apparently had been raining non-stop since Friday when I left. It's still raining as I'm writing this and the evil weathermen promise rain for the next several days. How can there be so much water up there??
But it's all fun and games until somebody's eye gets poked out, or until my right to drink gets taken away. Now I'm by no means a big drinker, but I like to be able to enjoy a nice beer after I've driven for 7+ hours straight and especially after I hung out in the parking lot of the Mammoth Cave park visitors' center waiting for my friend Ben to get his ass to the park from Chicago (there was no cell phone reception and apparently the boy got lost. Anyway, picture this, two tired and hungry kids make it to a Walmart/supermarket with full intention of buying some alcohol to soothe the aching butts and are told that "this is a dry county". ARRRRRGH. At this point it's a matter of principle and we drive down to the next county (about 30 miles away) just to load up on the alcohol for the next couple of days. We were so pissed and hungry we almost got a speeding ticket (but thankfully got off with a "courtesy warning"... this would normally be accompanied by a comment about how i feel about cops. but in view of this unexpected lucky occurrence this shall be skipped.
The country around the park is a trip in itself: there are more "rock shops" than one would ever think would be necessary on the planet (who buys ROCKS??). Fortunately there was other stuff we could play with: (I got a block to sharpen my machete--yeah! i'm dangerous now!!! and a little folding knife for all those occasions when i just really want to have a knife. Just in case i turn into Doug and want to go around "killing shit", or just for making holes). There were a couple of fainting goats I got to chase around and try to startle, but they were not impressed with how scary I was. Come to think of it, neither was I. As it was, I did not manage to make them faint. They just laughed at me in their goat-fashion. I also got to go horseback riding for the first time EVER in my life! Which was fun even though I could feel my sitting bones for the next couple of days. Unfortunately we only got to walk the horses, none of the trotting or galloping or any of that crazy wild stuff.
As it happens, we got through three bottles of wine the night before doing the wild cave tour at Mammoth cave, which basically comes down to waking up with a hangover and feeling like hell, taking down camp and praying we didnt forget anything (oh yeah, i couldnt find my keys so i got the honors of waking up the whole camp-site just because the siren went off for a while. This is then followed by much undercaffeinated spelunking (gotta love that word!!!!) for 6 hours and a drive back in the ridiculous rain for another 7 hours. In fact, I didnt make it. Around 50 miles from home i just had to stop and take a nap, because I was falling asleep on top of hydroplaning and that just seemed like badness waiting to happen. It was still raining when I got to Cleveland and apparently had been raining non-stop since Friday when I left. It's still raining as I'm writing this and the evil weathermen promise rain for the next several days. How can there be so much water up there??
posted by Irene @ 4:26 PM
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