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DAY 41

Week 6

MAMMOTH CAVES (Kentucky, USA) to JACKSON (Tennessee, USA)
via Bowling Green (Kentucky, USA)

Sunday July 30th, 2006

TODAYS MILEAGE – 224 miles or 360 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 6132 miles or 9868 kilometres

Who in their right mind would start their week by walking several hundred feet underground??? Ummm ..... that would be me.

Well, I technically didn't exactly start the week that way. Because it is so humid in Kentucky, I wanted to fire up the air conditioning in the Man Pad, so that it would be nice and cool for when I get back to take a shower. I tried to fire up the generator, but it would only turn over, but not run.

I got to investigate why it wouldn't run and found a small puddle of oil underneath the generator. Hmmm!!! I checked the oil level and find no lipstick on the dipstick. Uh-oh!!! The reason the generator would turn over but not run was the oil pressure switch wouldn't allow it to run due no oil pressure. Where'd the oil go. A quick 5 minutes of trouble shooting found the oil filter had worked it's way loose. I replaced the filter with a spare one I had, added 3 quarts of oil and the generator runs like a charm.

I walked over to Mammoth Cave National Park visitor station to check out all the guff on the joint. Seeing as there was only me, they squeezed me into the Historic Ranger Guided Tour after informing me that they try and keep the groups in manageable numbers. Come 10 o'clock I was expecting the Ranger to take 20 or 30 of us around on the 2 hour tour, not the 133 who headed to the cave mouth.

That's right, I was with 132 other people and spent most of the time waiting for human traffic jams to subside in order to move forward. I didn't really learn much about the history of the joint as when we were getting to where the Ranger stopped, he was answering some of the stupidest questions I'd ever heard on a tour, or he was ready head to the next stop.

Yeah, it was kind of cool to see some of the sights, but it was a cattle cruise that I spent two hours on which I'll never get back. I had the shits by time I left, but what do you do. If it wasn't for Katie and her sister yakking to me on the walk I may have thinned the heard somewhat, starting with the group of 14 year olds in front of us.

The National Park Service campground I spent the night in had turned off all water so I missed out on the shower I needed. Oh well, it was only 30 minutes to Bowling Green (Kentucky) and the National Corvette Museum, so I figured they can have a dose of the good ol' Aussie manly-man BO aroma ..... of the very good 1966 vintage.

As you can probably work out, the National Corvette Museum pays homage to only one vehicle. They put on a fair presentation of the history of the marque with assistance from it's members and from General Motors who build and assemble all 'Vettes across the street. Well worth the $8-00 and an hour or two if you're in the area.

On a sad note, about 30 minutes from here I came over the hill to see my second fatal of the trip. The first was a guy on a Honda Gold Wing who center punched a signpost while getting on the freeway in Minneapolis (Minnesota). In this case, it looked as if a young fella in a pick up tried pulling out to overtake a truck but didn't check his mirrors. He put his rear tire into the steer tire of the truck that was overtaking him. The pickup got sandwiched between the two rigs and it went downhill from there.

Tomorrow I'm headed for Tupelo (Mississippi). Wanna guess why???

Be safe out there.

TTFN