On day 3 we went to Cumberland Caverns, a deep and enormous cave. Seeing as all my photos are from my cellphone and my cell phone has no flash, you can probably guess how many fabulous photos I have from that day, right? Yes, so I'm just going to combine days 3 and 4 into one photo-filled post from the mountains of Tennessee.
Cumberland Caverns are around 30 miles of underground caves, and every year they discover more of them as they explore deeper into areas that no one has gone before. They are enormous. We walked and walked all day inside these caves.
OK, we're there. The reference to Bluegrass Underground refers to concerts they have inside the caves every year. The concert hall is enormous and completely underground, but there was no way for me to photograph it, so you'll have to take my word for it.
I have to admit, this was pretty cool, a parking lot just for motorcycles.
It's an official landmark, as opposed to all those fake landmarks.
Nice of them to show us where we are.
No pansy-assed 4-door girlie Jeep here, no sir! They drive this thing inside the caverns.
Walking to the cave entrance, the mouth loomed larger and larger. When we got there, we saw that they had sealed it up and installed locked steel double-doors to keep people from sneaking in after hours. Weird.
Inside the cave, the walls looked like something out of a nightmare.
Did I mention it looked like a nightmare inside the cave? They should set this up as a haunted house for Halloween.
I don't even know what this is, but it's a lot like most of my photos, which is why there aren't more here.
Remember the monster in the cave in Monte Python and the Holy Grail, the one that ate Robin's minstrels?
OK, so that was fun. And dark. And wet. It was raining that day and even if it hadn't been, it was super damp down inside the giant cave. Anyway, if you're into caves, watch the following video. I didn't make it, but it's about Cumberland Caverns and shows more of the inside.
On day 4 we went to Fall Creek Falls.
Big red farm
Log truck
Lovely directions. Very helpful.
Look what the drought has done to the waterfall! It looks like a vapor.
Um, where did our trail go? All I see is boulders ahead. We had to hike a mile and a half to the bottom of the waterfall, and sometimes there were obtacles like this.
A rockfall had buried our trail and we had to climb over the boulders, all the while wondering how often enormous chunks of rock fell out of the side of the mountain and onto the hikers below.
The drought-stricken waterfall almost looks like a beam of light. Or a government-approved, flow-restricting American showerhead.
I climbed on the rocks and behind the falls, of course. Shh, don't tell anyone.
This is the view from above the falls where signs said is was prohibited to go.
We had to walk a long way to the next waterfall, and cross this lovely bridge.
Cane Creek Cascades, not cascading much because of the drought
Back across the bridge again, which was swinging and bouncing after 6 hikers crossed ahead of us.
This is actually the water that leads to the first waterfall, all brown and rusty-looking. The redish-brown color is the result of a moss or fungus that grows on the rocks beneath the water.
Once again, a lovely view, this time standing on a jagged rock hanging out over the cliff.
I was standing on an overhang several hundred feet up overlooking the main waterfall
Further down the gorge, another view from the edge of a cliff.
Bambi came out to greet me and then told me to fuck off.
Just a nice view across the water.
Tennessee sunset
It was late and time to go back to the hotel.
Anyway, after 2 or 3 months of drought, the falls were not flowing nearly as well as they normally do. Here is a video some girl made last Spring, while the falls were gushing:
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