01.-03.8.2008: Nashville - Mammoth Cave National Park - Elizabethtown Nashville is the home of country music. We went for a tour on foot and found out that we hardly knew any of the names of the stars of country music. Everyone knows Dolly Parton though, so we actually recognized her name when we went to Grand Old Opry where she started her career. Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn also started their careers here. We drove into Kentucky and stopped off at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. We didn't go into the museum itself because we could go to a dealer just down the road and see all the corvettes on show for free!! Now that was very interesting! Our next stop was Mammoth Cave National Park. The visitor centre was undergoing major renovations and so there was no film or newspaper and most of the tours were already fully booked. Kirsten booked herself onto a 7pm tour where she would be allowed to take her tripod (the only tour where that is possible) and we booked a tour for both of us for the following morning. We went for a short, 1 hour walk to Cedar sink hole and then went to the services area for a shower. We followed the ranger in Winnie to drive out to the entrance for the "Frozen Niagara" tour that Kirsten went on. Some came out after only 30 minutes and Helen was really surprised that Kirsten was NOT the last one out!! She came out at 8-45 pm and there were still 2 others inside. But she was happy that she had managed to use her tripod to get photos. We drove just outside the Park boundaries for the night and then returned the next day to go on the "Historic Tour". There were 120 people on this tour but the caves are really huge so a group that size wasn't a problem. The tour took 2 hours and we went through massive rooms with high ceilings. We also went through "Fat Man's Misery" which is a narrow, winding passageway made for slim people. The rocks on either side are very shiny!!! It was only 17°C inside the caves which was a very welcome change but by the end we were quite cold! Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the world and was made into a National Park in 1941. The first tours, however, started in 1816 after the decline in demand for Saltpeter which was being mined in the cave. We warmed ourselves up afterwards by going on a 4 mile walk above ground to Styx Spring, Green River and Dixon cave. We drove to Lincoln's birthplace where there is a cabin that is similar to the one where Lincoln was born. Lincoln only spent the first 7 years of his life in Kentucky. The National Park film was very boring. It even beat the infamous Theodore Roosevelt NP film which we had designated as the most boring up until now. The film was 18 minutes long - 10 minutes of which was a very slow hymn being sung. Kirsten and Helen just looked at each other and raised our eye brows. Then we had a hard job stifling the smiles and laughter (Al..le..lu..jah!) that was threatening to come out!!