Mammoth- the Final Installment

I forgot to post on Part 2 that Wednesday morning Dailie was in charge of breakfast. She made biscuits from scratch, and we baked them in the Dutch Oven. We had scrambled eggs and sausage with them.

So, Wednesday evening we went to bed expecting a storm. We pulled everything away from the edges of the tents, and put all the equipment either in tents or the van. Rick watched the radar map on his Blackberry. Just before the storm was to hit where we were, there was a break in the storm. According to the radar, it was much more sever to the North and to the South of us. We felt so blessed. It most definitely did rain on us, but not as badly as it had looked like it would. One half of the big tent leaked, and Audri and Eliza ended up on the air mattress with Rick and I, since their sleeping bags were wet. That was the worst of it though. Not bad. It was still raining in the morning, and Rick and I talked about driving to a restaurant for breakfast. Many of the kids wanted to tough it out and make breakfast at camp, so we did!! Dallin got a great fire going for warmth, and we used the camp stove to first, heat some water for hot chocolate, and then to make some French toast. It was yummy, and we felt like real campers. The rain had mostly died down by the time we were eating. We had a morning cave tour, this time going on the New Entrance tour, where we got to see some of the "newer" portions of the cave. This is the portion that has formations. Formations, such as stalagmites and stalactites are formed from ground water seeping down from the roof of the cave. Mammoth Cave was formed by an underground river, and the limestone "ceiling" of the cave is then covered with insoluble sandstone and shale for most of it. In this portion of the cave, the ground water does seep down and create stunning formations. It was so much fun to see such variations.

We headed back to camp for lunch, where we had Ramen noodles!! These ended up being the perfect thing for a cold, wet day. I can't remember if we did anything more that afternoon, but that evening we made shrimp and sausage jambalaya in the Dutch Oven. It was YUMMMY. It was a little spicy for the kids (except Dallin), but I really liked it. That night in the tent was COLD. It was a very cold night, but we survived.

Friday morning we got up, had Dutch Oven country breakfast (basically the same as the omelet, but there were potatoes in the bottom, and ham instead of sausage), and broke camp. On our way out of Cave City, we stopped at the Alpine Slide and went down a couple of times. Daniel was too young to ride it, so he and I went on the go-karts instead. We stopped for lunch, and drove on to Crawfordsville where we had dinner with Nanny and Grandpa!! We spent a few hours there with them. It was such a nice break on the trip home, and really nice to get to spend some time with them. If you remember from my earlier post,my Grandma had passed away that afternoon. It was a good time to be with family.

We had such a good time camping as a family. We had some nice talks around the fire at night, gazing at the stars. There's just something that can be achieved when you are so close to nature that is difficult to accomplish in any other setting.