A taste of Kentucky

Bourbon and fried chicken... that's what I missed during my excursion north into Kentucky. In fact, if the highway signs are to be believed, I passed right by the birthplace of Colonel Sanders of KFC fame. But not surprisingly, my trip was all to do with geocaching, and nothing to do with actual taste buds. I'll save that for another trip.

With my 2000th geocache milestone approaching I had been looking for an exceptional geocache to find and settled on one in Kentucky, a mere 2 hours drive away, that involved rappelling into a deep cave. I've rappelled to find geocaches before, but never into a cave requiring ascenders to get back out, so it seemed suitably adventurous. But it wouldn't require all day to explore, so I plotted a route through the Daniel Boone National forest to hit up some other interesting locations and geocaches to round out the day.

The drive up interstate 75 early in the morning was foggy and I was a bit worried about rain, which the forecast promised. Even though I would be in a cave, the rappel/descent would be very wet if rainy. Luckily, the rain held off and I had an excellent double yo-yo into the cave. The cave was so impressive, I've posted it in a separate blog post. As I packed up my gear, I checked the time, only quarter to eleven. Lot's of time to check out some other areas. After getting to the car and sorting out all the climbing gear, we were off down scenic highway 192 towards the national forest.

Rock House near the cave entrance

First stop was Buck Creek Cave Cache, a neat cave system just off the highway. However, after spending a bit of times in caves already, and wanting to get onto longer hikes, I opted to not fully explore the cave. But it is still a neat, if not a little trashed, spot. Next stop was a few caches along the Laurel Reservoir along the Sheltowhee trace. I brushwhacked in to find a few caches along the trace (one puzzle and one trad). There were mushrooms everywhere and all different sorts. I really need to get back into mushroom hunting, looks like you can have a lot of fun doing that around here. Near the dam of the reservoir I hunted and found a 5/5 geocache called Slap slam bippity boo. This turned out to eb a fun multi cache, with a tricky boulder problem to reach the final. However, it was hardly what I'd call a difficulty 5 cache, since I could complete the whole cache in an hour. Still, a neat area to explore and well worth a visit.

Laurel Reservoir

Near Slip Slam

All these stops and hikes were starting to make me tired, and the clear blue waters of the Laurel Reservoir almost made me decide to call it a day here and just go swimming. But the "no dogs allowed" signs made me change my mind, and there was one last area I wanted to check out, the Niagra of the South, Cumberland Falls. A 20 minute drive was all it took to reach Cumberland falls, and theya re impressive indeed. But like Niagara Falls, the place was also developed for tourists. Instead of goinbg right up to the falls, I instead drove to the Eagle Falls trailhead, where Sasha and I hiked in to the Earthcache there and took a swim in the cold and clear waters underneath the waterfall. There were a dozen other folks doing the same though, so after cooling off we headed to a more secluded spot along a nearby loop trail (and scored another geocache). Amazingly, no one was on the beautiful loop trail, so Sasha and I had a nice peaceful nature walk.

Cumberland Falls view

Giant stones in the Cumberland River

The swift Cumberland river

Eagle Falls

Sliding rocks above Eagle Falls

Quiet Beauty above Eagle Falls

Sasha gets her cool on

When we got back to the car, I drove us a few minutes up the road to find two other interesting caches, one in a cave behind an abandoned hotel, and an earthcache at a natural sandstone rock bridge. The cave and abandoned hotel was pretty neat, but the rock bridge was pretty unimpressive, being a tiny little hole through a rocky outcropping along the side of the road. After these diversions, it was time to brave the crowds and check out Cumberland falls themselves, up close and personal.

Small cave behind abandoned hotel

My geocaching gameface

I don't know if I'd call these falls the Niagara of the south, Burgess Falls in Tennessee seemed as large and definitely higher. Still, this is an impressive falls and worth some time. Also, it seemed like a perfect last stop for my trip. But hopefully I'll be back sometime, there is still much to explore around here.

One final note: I made what I thought was a thorough tick check on getting home, and scrubbed myself in the shower. But when I went to bed I started getting itchy spots, and discovered the tiniest ticks I have ever seen. Maybe they were seed ticks, or even chiggers, I'm still not sure. My wife helped me pull off a bunch of these, but mostly I found them after itching a red spot. And then the next morning I had red marks all over my body but mostly around my ankles. It looked like poison ivy to me, but maybe was related to the tick-like insects. Either way, I had a few very uncomfortable nights, taking benedryl and slathering hydrocortizone all over myself. A final reminder of my taste of Kentucky.