When Vince got home we went out to several different bars. Not many people were out but we still had a good time.
The next morning I packed everything up and said bye to Vince, it was great to see him and I wish I had more time to hang out with him; he is very busy with school and work. It’s going to be taking up all of him time for awhile. I started the drive to Mammoth Cave, along the way there was a sign for the Makers Mark distillery. I had plenty of time and I didn’t plan on any hikes for today anyway. So I drove over there. It was about 45 minutes off the freeway through farm land. I made it to the distillery and had some time before the next tour. I waited around, at first I was the only me, then a couple showed up. As the tour was starting, about 12 older people showed up. It was a good tour and cool to see everything involved in making whiskey. Towards the end of the tour my camera crapped out on me. It wasn’t that big of deal, because the tour was over, but tomorrow I was hiking mammoth cave and I needed it for that. After the tasting, I went back to the car and looked up the closest BestBuy. I had to back track towards Louisville. This Best Buy told me they had to ship it out, I told them my situation. But the power hungry geek behind the counter wasn’t budging. The next one on the map ended up being a distribution center and I had to head all the way into Louisville for the next stop. Here the guy behind the counter said the same thing but he under stood my situation and tried to help me out. His manager was a huge older black lady who gave me the line, “its bad costumer service if I treat you differently then the next person.” My line back was “it would be good customer service to conform to each situation; a robot could do what you do.” Needless to say she wasn’t going to help me out. The third Best Buy had a completely different feel to the store. Everyone seemed happy. The guy I talked to told me they had to send it out, I told him the whole story and he asked his managers. They finally let me exchange it on the spot. I swapped it out for a cannon; we will see how this one works out. The managers told me they were doing me a favor and I have to pay it forward. Then I was back on the road and went to Cave City, 10 miles from Mammoth. There was a parking area for semi trucks and RVs. This was perfect, they even had high-speed internet. I watched some TV before bed.
During the night I left my key in the aux position, when I woke up to heat up the car at 4:30 the battery was dead. And it being 4:30 no one was around for me to ask for a jump. So I called AAA and someone came out within 30 min. the guy that came told me he just lives right up the street. After that I was up for the day, I didn’t even try to go back to bed. I looked up things for the next few days and watched some more TV. Workaholics is a hilarious show. Then I drove over to Mammoth Cave. I still had a lot of time before it opened, or a tour starting. So I watched a movie in the car. Then I went on the new entrance tour. The new entrance was found in the 1920’s and shows more of the different rock formations. It was a 2 hour tour but only a half mile long. The guide suggested going on the historic tour, this is the classic tour that most people go on and shows the main entrance. I had time so I went on that one next. This showed more of the classic mammoth cave areas. Huge open spaces with a lot of history to them. Both tour guides were great. They really loved their jobs and telling people about the cave. The second tour guide grew up on mammoth cave road about 15 minutes away. He went to cave when he was young and this is what he wanted to do ever sense then. This was a 2 hour tour also but it was 2 miles. In the summer they take up to 150 people on the tour, we had 7. This is the nice part of winter travel, that would be a zoo. I really wanted to do the extreme cave tour, but the only run those on the weekends. When I got back I was going to try to get a hike in then continue on my way. But I decided to just stay another night and do a few hike in the morning. I went back to the parking area, watched a few movies and called it a night. I asked a younger guy at a gas station if there was anything to do at night around here and there was nothing.
I slept late, I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before. Then headed to the first hike. This hike went out to a giant sink hole. It was about 150 feet deep with a river at the bottom. The river was a disappearing river that would seep water in from one side and seep out on the other. I hiked down near the water and it was a very nice spot. In the rock cliffs you could see the different rock that helped create the caves. There is a solid slab of slate on the top then looser sandstone and limestone under that. I hiked out and went back to the car. I drove over to where the water that seeped out from the sink hole comes out. This was an over look area that showed a large section of river. This was a short hike. I went back to the visitor center and hiked the trails around there. I hiked a trail that went all along the river. After that, I was done for around here. I drove south to the Corvette Museum. Corvettes are my favorite cars and it was great to see all different models. I also was able to get in for free, that expired military ID still comes in handy. There is a really good video in the beginning that explains the creation of the car. They probably have around 50 different models on display at one time. Next I wanted to go on a tour of the factory, but the late one was at 2:00pm. Maybe I will be able to do that in the morning. So I decided to check out the rail road museum, I really just wanted to settle a bet with my boss. They didn’t have what I needed. But it was defiantly an interesting tour. I thought you were just going to look around at different train things. The tour/museum consists of going through different restored train cars. So we went out to the train tracks and hopped on. The first car was an old post office car, and then it was a dining car, followed up by a kitchen car, then all the different passenger cars. They had couch, first class, and presidential train cars. It was a very nice walk through, they got a military hospital train car but it wasn’t ready for show yet. After hiking around the last few days I needed a shower. I looked around for a hotel to sneak into. Out here there aren’t any outdoor tubs, that was always easy last year. Everywhere I go you need a key to get it. And if no one is around as I walk up to the door it just gets weird standing there. So I found one where I saw people were in the pool. They were older people, I knocked and the older guy came to the door. Then the old bastard called me out. He wouldn’t let me in, and he was happy about it. I really really hope I’m never that old and bitter. So I went to a different one, here there was a father and daughter swimming. He let me right in. I sat in the hot tub, but I was totally disappointed. I think it was broken, it wasn’t hot at all. If I had to guess I would say like 85 or 90 degrees. So I didn’t soak long, but they had a shower area so I was able to clean up there.
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