Dog Creek and Horse Cave

On Friday, after spending a luxurious Thursday morning walking with The Dude and finishing reading a book in my camp chair at Houchin’s Ferry, we headed into Brownsville to check out the library for Internet access. Previously, I had missed the campground turn-off in Brownsville. Driving past a library in my detour, I didn’t take time to stop. Luckily there was no line for computer use when I did stop, so I was able to spend almost two hours on line. I emailed Tom and friends, deleted spam, checked my bank balance, and bought time for my prepaid cell phone. As a young woman traveling around the US in the 1970s, I had never had the luxury of access to messages and information from home. Sweet! I could have done without the spam.

After leaving the library, I looked for a laundromat in vain. I stopped for lunch at Laura’s Café, a nice little diner where I learned there was no laundromat. They served excellent deep fried catfish chunks along with fries, tasty coleslaw covered in a non-mayo sauce, and two hush puppies. Yum.

We headed back for Houchin’s Ferry, this time driving onto the ferry, across the Green River and up a hill onto the Houchin’s Ferry Road. The nicely maintained two-lane dirt road wound deliciously up and down and around hills that were covered in woods and mossy rocks. I stopped to visit the Temple Hill Cemetery, where the Houchins are buried along with Selfs, Parsleys, Coxes, Poteets, and Mudds, among others. Born at the end of the 1800s or later, their stone markers were beginning to erode. On some of the oldest looking markers, the letters were completely illegible. I have always thought of a grave marker as a permanent memorial. Just 100 years ago, many of these folks thought they were getting permanent markers for their loved ones. But even some nicely carved stones are now barely legible. I suppose the quality of the stone matters. Some folks just had rocks to mark their graves. Maybe the rocks had names at one time, but not anymore. It was a lesson for me about permanence, one that I would have thought I already understood.

After spending a few hours peacefully crawling along a couple of back roads in Mammoth Park, I came to the Green River Ferry, where I had planned to cross the Green River again. It is good to be flexible. The road took a steep decline to the loading area. The ferryman came to me at the back of the line and said I would have to back up and turn around. My rig was too long to fit the angle where road and ferry met. Darn! Luckily, backing up went fine. Now, instead of camping just on the other side of the river, I would have to drive the long way round. I didn’t even want to figure out the miles it would add to my evening. Nevertheless my error in route planning turned out to be serendipitous. As I got to the tee in the road that would take me either quite a way west or quite a way east, I saw a sign for Dog Creek Campground. The name was familiar because I had considered staying there at one point in my trip planning. My wonderful campground directory served me well that night. Dog Creek was just a few miles west.

Dog Creek Campground is part of the Nolin Lake Recreation Area run by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The caretakers seemed to be the nicest couple on the planet. I’ll call them Irene and Jack. They lived in a large RV near the entrance tollhouse. Irene worked there, and though Jack said he was retired, he helped me an awful lot.

This would be the first time I had electricity available to plug into. The solar panel and the motor home’s engine had kept the batteries charged well so far. Part of my new photovoltaic electric system had been the big fat batteries. I had had all the power I needed for lights, laptop and stereo. I wanted to try the 110-volt system and see how the fridge and the microwave oven worked. Probably should have checked that out at home, eh?

When I plugged my electrical hook up outside the RV into the campsite receptacle, I couldn’t get the 120-volt refrigerator to work. I walked down to Irene and Jack’s and timidly asked if they knew what I was doing wrong. Jack was nice enough to come all the way over and take a look, and after some experimenting, he found a circuit breaker that was not on and that easily solved that. After that I never had problems switching back and forth between the plug-in and the battery-only system.

The next day, I confessed to Jack and Irene that I had never used a dump station. I had read up on it but didn’t want to make a dumb mistake and get toilet waste running loose, proving to the world what a novice I was. Jack kindly helped me every step of the way and it went fine. I decided that I was going to do all right at this RV stuff. Once again, it proved to be true that some of the nicest people work as seasonal or volunteer caretakers of campgrounds, as well as at parks.

That night I stayed on top of a hill up above the lake. Emboldened by the success of getting electricity working, I ran the fridge and froze some ice. I took a shower in the tiny camper tub and shower unit. As I wrote in my journal that night, The Dude sulked in the driver’s seat in the cab. He was mad because I had pulled off all his wood ticks. (At least the ones I found.) He despises this process and sees no good reason why it must go on. Since many of the little demons hide in the fur of his belly, he suffers the additional indignity of being turned on his back.

The Dude is not your average dog who likes to have his belly rubbed, turning over for every Tom, Dick and Harry. No. Not even for Tom. The Dude is sensitive about exposing his belly to anyone, including his dear companion--me. Some days I could find a dozen ticks on him in various stages of glut. That night he got off with only four. No amount of ear scratching or treats would make him tolerate the indignity of tick picking without a good sulk in the cab afterwards.

Our evening perusal of the campground, I confirmed that this was a nice place to relax, clean out the Escaper, and plan the next leg of my trip. We made some acquaintance with a West Highland Terrier and his people, who were camped below us right next to the lake. Nice folks and our dogs liked each other too. There were about 70 campsites and only about a dozen other campers. I am a big fan of uncrowded campgrounds. I had spotted another really nice campsite right next to the lake in the shade, with woods on one side and no other campers next door on the other.

On Saturday morning, I asked Irene if I could switch sites. She reminded me that there was no electric hook up there, but I said I didn’t mind, plus the fee was lower. I backed into my new site and enjoyed the view from my windows inside or from my camp chair near the lake. On one side were the lake and boaters and on the other a different view of lake and trees. It was warm enough for a tee shirt and shorts, a real treat for me coming from home’s near-freezing temps. Temperatures at Dog Creek were in the 80s that day as I admired the view. A steady cool breeze coming in the door and out the vents and windows was a welcome sensation after walking in the heat. At home, I generally think 80 degrees is very hot. I would come to think of that as pleasantly cool after visiting some of the farther southern states.

I had all day to clear up the disorder of stuff left lying about the camper and shake the dirt out of rugs. In my tidy, reorganized and clean “cabin on the lake” I felt I was one of the luckiest people on earth. One thing that would have made it completely perfect would have been a cell phone signal so I could call Tom. Well, I suppose in order to be completely perfect, Tom would have to be there. No such luck for even a cell signal, though I tried in various spots of the park.

Instead, I looked over road maps to plan tentative routes and checked my directories for tentative camping sites. I decided to make for Cumberland Gap National Historic Site before going to my original next goal, Smokey Mountain National Park. It wouldn’t be much of a detour and the photos I saw in a brochure showed another beautiful area. I also wanted to visit the American Cave Museum on my way back east of the Mammoth Cave Park. Both of these detours proved to be good choices.

As we continued onwards Sunday, meandering along the north road of Mammoth Park, we startled two low flying, red-faced vultures. Even The Dude saw them as they dipped past the windshield. With his head tucked down on my lap, he usually misses scenery and wildlife. It was hot, but not enough for me to switch on the AC. I was enjoying the sensation of being hot for a change. However, a hot dog breathing on my lap does not contribute to a fun travel experience. It was too hot to allow him his usual co-pilot position, so he sulked by the passenger door staring out the windshield.

Taking two-lane paved or dirt roads with no shoulders, winding around the hilly territory at 35 to 45 miles per hour, it seemed to take forever to get anywhere. I wasn’t planning to get much farther down the road that day but I did want to find a laundromat after visiting the American Cave Museum. Their brochure had enticed me when I picked it off the info rack at Mammoth Park. There are lots of caves open for tours in the area. There were caves attached to amusement parks and restaurants, all claiming to have the biggest or the best of some cave feature. Even the American Cave Museum brochure says they have “one of the largest naturally occurring cave entrances in the USA.” One interesting “attraction” I passed was the Golgotha Family Fun Park. I thought it an odd choice of names and wondered if the specter of Christ’s suffering on the cross didn’t throw a pall over family fun times.

In the town of Horse Cave I found a parking spot near the main door of the museum. I left two exhaust fans running for The Dude and figured from the angle of the sun that the Escaper should be in the shade long enough to give me some time to take the cave tour and see the museum. With half an hour until the next tour, I explored the museum.

The American Cave Museum brochure quotes the Nature Conservancy as saying “The Museum is a state-of-the-art showcase of underground natural history–a little bit of Smithsonian in rural Kentucky.” They are bragging justifiably. Frankly, I had expected a kind of tiny town museum, thus was pleased to find that the museum and staff were every bit as sophisticated and creative as promised.

I was impressed with the design of their displays. They cleverly presented difficult to understand subjects (for me at least) like how water circulates in our planet’s ecosystem. In a display on human waste, the information is laid out on an outhouse door. The information on road runoff is presented on a background of blacktop. The info on solid waste is arrayed on a background of rusty cans and discarded bottles, while the industrial waste info is shown on a bed of 50-gallon barrel lids. A colorful map of groundwater and land use illustrates how our water can become polluted in ways I, as a supposedly educated environmentalist, had not realized. The message to me was that what we put in and on the soil comes back at us in our water, so we better pay attention to what we do with our waste.

The exhibit also helped me understand that the story of caves is the story of water. Ancient underground rivers formed the caves and remain flowing today, though with less volume. As people settled in the area, they began changing the water quality by using some caves as garbage dumps and sewers, even as we were taking our fresh water from other caves. What they did not realize was how interconnected the caves are because of the rivers flowing through them. Garbage in the ground means garbage in the water. Garbage makes the water toxic, eh? That is what happened big time in Hidden River Cave, located in the center of the town of Horse Cave.

Hidden River Cave, a water quality success story, is next to the museum building. In 1943, the cave had to be closed off because so many pollutants had contaminated the ground water. It was no longer drinkable or usable for any purpose. Only a couple species of fish and crustaceans had been adapted to living in the caves, and they were fatalities of the pollution early on. After many years of work cleaning the cave and decreasing the amounts of pollutants going into the area’s natural water systems, the cave was reopened in 1993. The blind fish and crayfish are back in their native habitat, swimming the waters of Hidden River.

I enjoyed the tour, though it is a short one compared to those I had taken at the national park. The guide was obviously a well-informed and active participant in this entertaining and educational enterprise. The cave entrance was beautifully landscaped at the top where volunteers were developing a perennial garden. Further down the winding path, the slopes returned to natural vegetation and weeds.

At the bottom of the long stairway, we could see the remains of a water powered generator where the town of Horse Cave got its electricity in the early days of home wiring. We followed a walkway along the river where the guide pointed out several of the tiny blind fish. We saw blind crickets too. They sound ordinary, but consider that they are creatures near extinction that have gotten a safe living space back. Gives me faith in nature’s ability to heal--if only we could always clean up our messes or not make them in the first place. After hiking up a long stairway to view a cavern, we returned to the museum by the route we had come.

I asked the fellow at the front desk if I could walk my dog and then return to see the rest of the museum displays without having to pay again. He surprised me by saying if he had known I had a pal with me, he would have let him come along on the tour. I didn’t think The Dude would have cared for the conditions. The fellow said to bring The Dude in with me when we were done with his walk, and he could tour the museum with me!

The Dude didn’t recognize the taxidermy animals behind glass as creatures he has yearned to chase in the woods. He didn’t appreciate the stories of prehistoric and early American explorers either. I did snap a photo of him smiling in front of a display about oil in groundwater. I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand a word of that either.

I finished out our day by getting the laundry done, a job often more tedious for the waiting Dude than for me. He did get a couple walks along busy streets while things were washing and then drying. His nose was close to the ground most of the time. Smelling seems to be a dog’s main form of entertainment and the roadside provided something he found fascinating.

That night we stayed at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park. I had never heard of State Resort Parks before. This one had a huge resort hotel with a restaurant and a great gift shop full of the work of local artists. Set apart from the hotel, picnic area and marina area, the campground was lightly in use that night. The Dude and I walked in a wooded area right next to the campground, where we found large oaks, boulders, and two grocery bags of litter. It’s just sad.