Eileen's Random Travels

A Photoblog post of my random travels.

"Find some beautiful place to get lost." unknown

These are some images from our May 2018 visit to Hocking Hills State Park near Logan Ohio.

A view of Cedar Falls and the trail at Cedar Falls, Hocking Hills State Park.

I am sharing some of my random travel photos, this is not only for my followers but more of a reminder for me and my hubby of where we have been and what we have seen over the years. All good memories for us, I hope you enjoy too.

" We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone." unknown

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day!

Diamond Caverns, Park City Kentucky

 We toured and hiked more of Mammoth Cave National Park we also took a tour of the Diamond Caverns just outside the park entrance. We hiked on the Green River Bluff trail had beautiful views of the river and forest in the park. 

The Green River a day after the big rain storm. The river is muddy and not the green color from the day before.

One of the few raptors I saw on my road trip. I am not sure of the id.

Diamond Caverns is a public cave outside the Mammoth Cave National Park. Diamond Caverns has been offering tours for 155 years.

The some of the ceiling in the Diamond Caverns.

Below are various cave formations found in the Diamond Caverns.

The water dripping constantly keeps the cave growing.  I think the drips on the bottom right look neat.

The shapes and formations are beautiful.

Amazing drapery formation was very pretty.

We did not see any of the bats in the caves, I would not mind seeing them hanging from the cave ceiling.  White-nose Syndrome is a disease that is killing bat populations and spreading in the USA. The loss of millions of bats is bad news as they devour millions of insect pests and have a role in pollination.

Thanks for the visit and comment, Take care, enjoy your day!

Mammoth Caves National Park, Part 2

 These are photos from our road trip and visit to Mammoth Cave National Park on May 4-7. On May 5th hubby and I had reserved a cave tour called the Frozen Niagara. The tour lasted 1 hour 15 minutes, we were taken by bus to the cave entrance.

Mammoth Caves are known for their big rooms, this Frozen Niagara tour took us into an area that has some pretty cave decorations.

This was the wettest day on our trip, Kentucky received 3 inches of rain and it was the day of the Kentucky Derby. A rainy day was a good day to be inside the caves, no rain there!

 Not too many steps on this tour, we picked this tour because it described as one of the more decorated sections of the cave. 

A Cave Cricket, important for the cave's ecosystem.

Outside the cave at the Sloan's Crossing Pond, we took a short loop walk around this pond in the park. I did see a couple of Wood Ducks with ducklings. They hid quickly in the reeds.

Rain drops keep falling on my head, lol. Are you familiar with the BJ Thomas song?

Honeysuckle

 The following day hubby took the Historic Tour which was two hours, during that time I went on an easy hike and did some birding. 

I hope you enjoyed my post and photos. I wish everyone a great new week ahead.

Mammoth Caves National Park

 The Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky was one of the highlights of our road trip. Mammoth Cave NP is located at the Cave City exit off of Route 65. We picked a hotel off of Rt 65 in Bowling Green Kentucky which was 26 miles from the park entrance.

Tours through the cave are so popular we reserved our tours a month or so before our trip. The Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world, with over 400 miles explored. We spent 2 nights and 3 days in the area, exploring the cave and went on some hikes in the park.

Images are from  our first afternoon in Mammoth Cave NP, we walked down the trail to the Green River and to see the opening for the Historic Entrance of the cave. I noticed a lot of wildflowers along the trail, wild turkeys were seen on the road into the park, birds nest , Indigo Bunting silhouette, trail sign.

This is the trail down to the Green River and to the Historic Entrance of the Mammoth Cave.

Down the steps is the Historic Cave entrance. Hubby had a reservation to take the guided tour the next morning.

The Green River, it really is green.

Not open to the public, but below is a wet entrance/exit into or out of the cave. It reminds me of a trip & cruise we took years ago, stopping in Belize we went on a river caving excursion.

We saw a few deer laying on the ground off the trail.

The wild turkeys were one of the birds we saw often, mostly along the park road.

I will share more of the Mammoth Cave tours on another post. Hubby is a spelunker, which is a person who likes to explore caves.  We have also been to Carlsbad Caves in New Mexico, you can check out my post on Carlsbad by clicking on the sidebar link.




 I hope you enjoyed my post and photos. Thanks for visiting.