Star Chamber Bliss

Greetings from somewhere along Interstate 90 in South Dakota! Marco is currently manning the wheel and the endless farmland that we’re passing is not keeping me amused, so, what better time to catch up on blogging! I last left off with us squandering our time in Kentucky. Though many of you may have assumed we were in Kentucky to climb at Red River Gorge, we were actually at Mammoth Cave National Park (the temps in Red River looked WAY too hot to climb). One item that has proven pretty clutch on this trip is our National Geographic Guide to the National Parks, which is what directed us to Mammoth Cave. Though only a quick pit stop, it was a very cool place to check out.

Mammoth Cave is the world’s longest known cave system! Marco and I took the 2 ½ hour Star Chamber Tour of the caves. There is a 6 hour “belly crawling” Wild Cave Tour that is offered, but I got anxious/claustrophobic by simply reading the description—“chest or hip measurements must not exceed 42 inches; if you are larger you cannot physically pass through the crawl spaces.” Um, I may not be 42 inches, but still…no thank you! Marco was a little bummed I nixed that tour, but had I not, I would not be writing to you right now. I would no doubt have freaked out during the tour, my body would have expanded due to a panic attack (does that happen? I feel like I’ve heard it does…) and I would be stuck in a tiny crawlspace somewhere in Mammoth Cave.

Back to our actual tour, it was really fascinating. It was a good portion of history and a good portion of exploring. The history is what got me—visitors have been coming to tour Mammoth Cave since 1816 (I think that was the date…you’ll have to excuse any discrepancies in my retelling of the history). How crazy is that? Even more crazy…there is much evidence that prehistoric man explored the cave over 4,000 years ago! Apparently they entered the cave and explored for miles with just a burning stick! I had trouble even trusting the lanterns they gave us—I would not have done well as a prehistoric cave explorer. Overall, the experience of being in the cave was very profound. Its largeness and utter vastness is beyond description. It is so rich with history and (I know this sounds cheesy but) I could really feel the history of the cave all around me. In the early 1800’s, the cave was used to mine saltpeter, which was used in gunpowder (I think…again, my retelling of history is based on my memory, so discount it accordingly). The cave was worked by numerous slaves. Once saltpeter was no longer profitable to trade, the owners of the cave decided to give a go at making money off the cave via tours…and the rest is history! The early tour guides were slaves, and one such tour guide, Stephen Bishop, appears to have spearheaded the exploring and mapping of the cave system. Letters from visitors to the cave in the 1850s describe Bishop as “an expounder” and “high priest” of the cave. The stories of Bishop were pretty inspiring to hear.

And before I bore you with too much history, I’ll throw in some pictures. Note, we were only allowed to take pictures during a brief part of the tour at the very end—they lit up a hallway of the cave and let us go to town with our cameras. The lighting isn’t great for obvious reasons—we were in a cave!—but you get the picture.

The early tour guides were charged with clearing the paths of the cave of all the little stones that lay on the ground, so as to make a safer/easier path for visitors to walk on. As opposed to spending their free time doing so, the guides devised a clever method for getting the job done and for making tips at the same time—at the end of each tour, they “allowed” visitors to build mini-monuments out of the stones and leave a business card/engraving on their monument to indicate that they had been in the cave. Here is one such monument!

Prior to the monument building described above, guides made additional money by letting visitors use candles to burn their name into the ceiling of the cave. This section of the cave is known as Gothic Avenue—there were hundreds (maybe thousands?) of names inscribed. “Geo S. Gatewood,” as seen in the photo, is George S. Gatewood, the son of one of the early owners of the cave. He was a preacher that used to conduct church services in a huge chamber of the cave that is now called the Methodist Church.

Our tour of Mammoth Cave culminated in a visit to a portion of the cave called Star Chamber. It’s a large chamber with a dark ceiling. When the chamber is lit up by lanterns, it truly looks as though the ceiling is the night sky dotted with hundreds of stars! It’s a very trippy illusion—you feel like you’re outside in the middle of a huge field looking up at the endless sky, but, in reality, you’re buried far underground and confined in a cave. During our visit to the Star Chamber, our guide took away all of our lanterns and left us engulfed in utter darkness. Again, it felt like some crazy illusion. My hand was right in front of my face, touching my nose, and yet I could not see a thing! I have never experienced such total and all encompassing darkness. I felt like I was only living in my mind at the moment and not in my body at all. It was as if my body didn’t exist. It was very cool.

The Star Chamber Tour was interesting on another level to me in that it highlighted the unique experience of being part of a group. I noticed this whole “group phenomenon” during our New River rafting trip as well—I’m realizing it’s a pretty common phenomenon when it comes to partaking in activities at state or national parks. What I am talking about is the occurrence of complete and total strangers temporarily coming together to experience something very unique and intimate as a cohesive and tight-knit group. For example, on our rafting trip, there were seven of us in our raft in addition to a guide—myself, Marco, an older couple celebrating their 20th anniversary, and three friends from Chicago. We were total strangers when the trip began, but by the end of our six hour day of death-defying rapids, we were tight as glue. We spent a while hanging out with the older couple after the trip was over. The seven of us forged a temporary, but nonetheless intimate, bond for the day and it was quite cool. It’s pretty unique and extraordinary how people do this. On the other hand, the whole group phenomenon can backfire sometimes. Our group experience at Mammoth Cave was far from cohesive and tight-knit. Rather, our group was a lot larger (40 people) and consisted of obnoxious college kids and a handful of loud and bratty nine year olds. Marco and I distanced ourselves from the group as much as possible. I was semi-offended to be experiencing something so mesmerizing with such buffoons (buffoons=such an accurate word to describe certain types of people like those on our cave tour)! Oh well. I look forward to meeting many more people along our trip and forging other temporary yet tight bonds!

After Mammoth Cave we made a big push northwest with South Dakota in our sights! The drive was looking to be roughly 19 hours, so we made some stops along the way. First, we had dinner in St. Louis, Missouri. Seeing as it was both of our first times in St. Louis, we were a bit unfamiliar with the city. After spending roughly 30 minutes on my phone trying to look up a cool “St. Louis” restaurant to eat at, we realized that just about EVERY restaurant in the city is closed on Sunday evenings. What is with cities shutting down on Sunday!? This happened in Galax, VA as well. Fortunately, after some more searching, we found a fried chicken joint that was open…Hodaks, where chicken lovers come to roost (or so they say)! We had a very lovely experience, mostly because of our very touching waiter (this is one of my favorite encounters of our trip so far!).

Our waiter’s name was Tim. He looked to be in his late-30s or early-40s. After checking our IDs to ensure we were 21 (he told me we both looked borderline…yes!), he expressed his surprise that we were from Massachusetts and also informed us that he spent a summer in Mass and didn’t like it much. (Don’t worry, I don’t blame him—it was in Springfield, MA. I wouldn’t want to spend a summer there either!) Anyway, we made small talk throughout the meal each time he checked in on us. At the end, we asked for a small takeout box for our leftovers. He insisted on bringing a big one, but we explained that we’re temporarily living out of our van and, therefore, we were tight on cooler space. Of course this opened up the whole “Oh wow! What are you doing living in a van?” conversation. After swapping stories, we learned Tim is in the midst of saving for a six month cross country trip he plans to embark on next year. It was a cute conversation and Tim was genuinely super interested in hearing about our trip. Shortly after, Tim brought us the bill, we put down our card, and he rang it up. However, get this, he bought us one of our dinners, so we only had to pay for one ourselves! Apparently he gets a free dinner during each shift he works, so he used his dinner that night on us. And he was overly insistent that we save our money and not tip him. He said he already hit his quota for tips for the night and was satisfied with what he had made. It was such a touching gesture. Both Marco and I were in shock. And, as if the prior events weren’t nice enough, on our way out he offered to give us bags of ice to fill up our cooler! It’s reassuring and refreshing to discover that there are compassionate and caring people in the world. And, in case you were concerned, we of course ended up tipping him. So, all in all, St. Louis was a pleasant pit stop thanks to Tim!

After spending the night at a random WalMart in Missouri, we shot across the state to Kansas City. Marco scouted out a great little brewery that gives free brewery tours every day—Boulevard Brewery. We took a tour at Boulevard, which was followed by free beer tastings! I’ve never experienced so much free-ness in my life, it was great. The brewery was like a mini-Willy Wonka factory! And the beer was delicious. Unfortunately, Boulevard beer is not sold in NY state. But for my friends in Massachusetts, it’s in Boston!

I was waiting for the Oompa Loompas to come out!

Finally, after our pit stops in Missouri, we hit the road to finish up the drive to South Dakota. Marco’s favorite story about our drive to South Dakota is this tiny little town we stopped in to get gas—Rockport, Missouri. Population = 1,318 (though I think it may be closer to 1 these days). We drove through on a Monday afternoon and it was a legit ghost town. No cars out, no businesses open, no people to be seen! I’m not sure if the following pictures do it justice, but it was literally an abandoned town.

Cue the Old West music...

The one sign of life we did see in the town consisted of a man driving his lawn-mower through the streets. Creeeeeepy. Totally the setting of a horror movie that is too scary for me to watch. Yikes! We got out of there quick!

We’re VERY excited to begin our exploration of the western part of the country! For anyone looking to make summer travel plans, it looks like we’ll be in Squamish in early July for a few weeks and then we’ll head down through the Pacific Northwest to check out Smith Rock and some other sites along the way…exact dates to be ironed down soon. Come visit! We miss everyone dearly! Lots of love from Interstate 90 (or wherever we are when I finally get around to posting this)!