Day 3: June 11, 2010

We spent the whole day camping at Mammoth Cave.  It started off as a hot day.  Our battery in our trailer kept dying.  We would run the car for 30 minutes to an hour to charge it and within a couple of hours it was totally dead again.  Also our refrigerator wouldn't stay on.  I started to have real anxiety over it.

We drove down to the visitor center this time since we needed somewhere to leave the strollers since we wouldn't be able to take them on the cave tour and the walk was a little long for Timmy.  We got there right after the 8:30 a.m. tour had already left.  We paid for the 9:45 a.m. tour and decided to walk down to the cave entrance that was close to the visitor center.  The Visitor Center was undergoing construction and so it didn't have a whole lot to look at and was very busy.  All the kids were free so we only had to pay for Ray and me.  Kids 5 and under are free on the cave tours.

Once we got close to the cave entrance we could feel the coolness rising from the deep entrance and we talked about staying down there all day.

We rode a green school bus over to the cave entrance we were going on.  We did the Frozen Niagra tour since that was recommended for people with physical limits and small children.  We put Kimberly in the snuggly on Ray and I helped Timmy.  We entered through a revolving door and Sheila immediately wanted out.  She is not much into caves.  Ray distracted her when he saw a cricket on the wall.  Sheila loves bugs.

It was only about 1/4 mile round trip but it felt longer since there were narrow and short passage ways.  Sheila wouldn't go down the stairs to see the frozen niagra so I stayed up top with her and Ray went down with Timmy and Kimberly.

After the cave tour that lasted just about an hour and then a ride back to the visitor center we drove into town to get some gas and got some lunch since I didn't feel like cooking in a hot trailer.

Later that afternoon we went a hike on one of the nature trails.  We took the strollers and eventually had to leave them on the trail.  Oh and there were ticks everywhere.  The night before Ray saw one on his camp chair and knocked it off.  Then when he took Timmy to the bathroom after the cave tour he saw one on Timmy's privates.  He asked the ranger what was the best way to get it off and he said tweezers so we did that when we got back to camp.  Ray got a tick in his leg the next day when we were breaking camp.  I sprayed the kids and I with bug spray so good that I think that helped us from getting anymore.

On the nature walk we saw a really cool turtle and some wild turkeys.  A couple saw deer on the trail but we never got to see them.  We hiked down to a sink hole and back.  It was full of water so just looked like a swampy pond.

The refrigerator and battery continued to give us problems all day.  After dinner I couldn't take it anymore.  I called my dad to discuss what the problem was.  He told me the refrigerator might be because of the battery being bad.  It ran on propane when not running on electricity but the battery gives the power to the ignitor on the fridge.  So at 8 we decided to go find a walmart.  There was one 20 minutes away.  We got there and bought the biggest battery (it was only $10 more than the other size.)  We got back to the trailer around 10.  Ray got it hooked up and viola! everything worked again.  No problem with the battery for the rest of the trip.  We will be going back to RV connection to replace the battery that trailer since it was bad.  The new one becomes fully recharged after only about 10 minutes of being charged.  We still didn't have AC but we had lights and the refrigerator stayed on.