A sad day... It was time to say bye-bye to my family and The Forest. It was a good thing that I had packed as much as I could last night to give myself as much morning time as I could get with Panna. We hugged and then waved one last time before departing. As I sat in the Jeep after turning it around, I waved at The Forest and said, "Until next time."

Here I was, driving the first of 1300+ miles towards home on a bright, sunny day, taking in the last of corn and soybean fields, farm houses, and tractors. I took the loop around Columbus, stopping by a couple of stores to resupply for the trip. I decided that I was going to Springfield again, this time to stop by Super Scout Specialists, one of the Scout/Light Line dealers just chock full of used, new old stock parts (parts made back in the day, but never sold to customers), and new parts being made today by different companies catering to our particular interest. I pulled into the parking lot on the opposite end of the building from the Scout car lot, where you will find some Scouts for sale. This unassuming location is off of W Main St in what appears to be two buildings built together. I walked along to the front door and finally got to see for myself the exterior I had only seen online.

The interior was a sight to see! Like Trader Joe's, you were literally stepping back in time, with all these parts dating back to the time of the Scout series (except for the currently-made parts of today). Rob was very kind to provide me a tour of the store. The warehouse has loads of parts for your Scout 80/800/II. If they don't have it, they can eventually track it down for you.

We made our way to the back, where I saw an older man, Dick, making sheet metal parts with a brake machine that bends then into the shape you need. There are other sheet metal tools that let you cut them into various shapes before putting them into the brake to bend them. I asked about the "weather" inside the building, and they said it's rarely comfortable, with no AC in the summer and insufficient heat in the winter. These guys work hard to keep our Scouts on the road!

Making our way back to the store front, I saw additional parts like engines and transmissions. LOTS of them! I asked if there were plans to eventually make motors, and Rob said no because the engines (and transmissions) outlive the rest of the vehicles, by far. More parts on shelfs.

I thanked him and let myself out when I was done looking and came around the other end to take some photos of the Scouts and other IH vehicles sitting in the lot.

I had to head out, but stopped at the local post office to mail some things. I continued onward to Dayton on I-70 to loop around it on Loop 675 to get to I-75 south to Cincinnati.

It was along the way that I stumbled across Solid Rock Church. I couldn't believe it! I had to stop here! There was the remains of the Jesus statue behind the pond. I was stoked for photos of this place! I went to the next exit to turn around and get photos of this place. I couldn't believe my luck! I was supposed to stop here last year, but car problems on the previous trip to OH and the loan process on the Honda kept me from having enough time to stop here on the way home. This statue is a landmark familiar to people in Monroe, OH. It is known as "Kings of Kings" or "Touchdown Jesus." It was about 62 feet tall before it was struck by lightning last summer, shortly before the previous trip. It was valued alone at $300,000, and the fire caused by the lightning also caused an additional $400,000 in damages to a building behind it. Hence, the irony of it. All that remained of it on this day was part of the steel framing and foundation for the statue and the half-empty pond that probably doesn't have fish in it by now (they were dead and dying shortly after the incident).

There was no evidence of work being done to the statue and the pond, a year later. News sources at the time of the lightning strike stated that the church owners/management "vowed that work would begin anew."

This is a controversial topic, whether to put the money instead to charity for the poor, the hungry, the unlucky, the unemployed, or to build such things that allows a church to make a statement by picking up its "churchhood" and slinging it over its brawny shoulder (like a man would himself). I was told by someone familiar with the topic that maybe this is a holdover from the days when there were no roads, just foot trails, and people needed to be able to see the church from afar (tall buildings). However, that doesn't seem necessary, given that such institutions believe that they are forever in social and technological ascendancy (over the long term with short term ups and downs), leading one to believe that they would not need to build such things if all you have to do is ask anyone in the area how to get to this church, which is rather hard to miss from the Interstate or Hwy 63, whether by vehicle, horse, bicycle, or foot. Even though I had never set foot in this area, I knew exactly how to get there through the Internet. It has been said that it would be rebuilt by the end of the year, but at only 50 feet tall. Hmmm. It is a pet peeve of mine when money is spent extravagantly. Some people value material things more than the things that you CAN take with you when you leave this earth. That's human nature. Or it's just "tradition."

Anyhow, I turned around and headed south on I-75 to get onto I-71 to Louisville and eventually get onto I-65 on the way to Mammoth Cave National Park in south KY. Along the way is more of the interesting rock walls along the way, with white-grayish marks from the cutting and blasting to make way for the Interstate.

I wonder what it was like to travel this by team-and-wagon before there were any graded roads of any kind. I got off in Cave City to head west towards the park. It was a great drive with nice views. Lots of trees. Getting there was a bit tricky, as the map printouts from home didn't seem to match up with what I was seeing. I ended up winging it and following the brown national park signs and watching for every turn.

I made my way to the visitor center and walked inside to find out how I was going to get a campsite. This was my first visit to a national park as an adult (the last national park had been as a child. The national forests have been the only federal resources I have gone into since then), and this was where I got my Access Pass, where I am able to get in many parks with reduced rates. I certainly will make use of this pass over the years. While I was just getting into the park, I realized I had come back into Central Standard Time, so I had gained an hour! When I was looking for something to do for the evening, I realized that I had enough time to find my campsite and come back to the visitor center to meet up for the Star Chamber tour at 6 PM. It would be a two-and-half-hour tour over a mile and a half underground!

I drove around to the Mammoth Cave campground and set up camp, looking out for ant hills and picking a level spot (something I didn't do at the Lake Catherine State Park site, being used to flat Texas campsites). I ate a small amount (as we would be underground without restroom facilities) before heading back to the visitor center.

The group for the tour met up at one of the shelters behind the visitor center, where we met our tour guides, National Park Rangers. I could tell right away that our leading guide had a sense of humor (you also have a trailing guide to make sure people don't get too far behind and become lost; after all, it is the longest cave system in the world with over 390 MILES of passageways! ). We got instruction on how to carry the lanterns and stay safe, then we were on our way!

The walk to the mouth of Mammoth Cave led us on a descending path inside the edge of the forest that covers the park. It was warm in the late afternoon sun. Here, you'll hear sounds of nature and see trees everywhere! There are 84 species of trees and at least five or more bat species that live in the cave. We were cautioned before entering the cave that you must disinfect for white-nose syndrome organisms after the tour, which we are not susceptible to, but the bats certainly are and die from it. You walk on a bio security mat that has lysol on it to kill the fungus. It helps if you put on a fresh set of clothes before going on a cave tour to mitigate the spread of this fungus which has been brought over from Europe.

Mammoth Cave is named not because of mammoth remains, but because of the very large "rooms" that you see along the way. Going in on a descending path, you'll find that the cave is very cool and somewhat damp (constantly at 54 degrees). No flash photography is allowed except as strictly directed so as not to bother bats, and you might get blinded and ruin your night vision, which is essential for a lantern tour like this one.

I'm told this is not your typical cave tour in this park, in that while it might not be geologically as interesting as other tours, this one is full of history. This a limestone cave capped by a very large layer of sandstone, and somewhere down you have a layer of sparse amounts of limestone mixed in with the sandstone. This all dates from the Mississippian Age.

There are several interesting stories, lots of them actually. We heard just a few of them that were relevant for the tour. One was the fact that the caves contain nitrate, which was a critical ingredient used to make gunpowder. It was mined for the wars of 1812 and onward. Even the wooden mine structures and some mining equipment are still there. An interesting thing is the wooden pipes used to run the water down into the cave for the nitrate processing. You will see deep holes of about 15 feet or more to one side, which was where the slaves worked. Slaves were used to mine the nitrate from the soil by digging the soil and then processing the soil in water to recover the nitrate in these leaching pits.

Supposedly, a slave, Alfred became tired of his daily job in the pits, so he asked to go work deeper in the mines. It was a while before he was allowed to do so. Apparently, one day when he was deeper into the cave, he knocked himself out and lost his light (lantern dropped or went out), and he couldn't see at all in the cave when he came to. I think he grappled until he found two rocks and started banging them. Eventually, the people had realized that he had gone missing, so they went looking for him. It was spooky, as he would hear noises that frightened him as they approached, hence the name of the Haunted Chamber on this tour. The ranger demonstrated by bellowing out, "Alfred, where are you?" You could hear his voice carry out through the passages in strange ways. Anyway, Alfred went back to the leaching pits afterwards...

The Star Chamber is named so because of the gypsum in the ceiling, and many, many tours were led in the two centuries of tourism, which blackened the ceiling with smoke from the oil-rag torches in the early days. One of the ways guides made money back then was to offer a few rocks for the tourists to throw up at the ceiling (and they usually failed), and then, for a price, the guides would throw rocks up there, successfully chipping the blackened gypsum off. Then you would see the fresh gypsum behind it.

Another feature on this tour was the tuberculosis hospital, which was built after 1839 by Dr. Croghan. It consists today of three structures; single-floor stone buildings with long-gone canvas roofs and the wall of the cave as one of its walls. There is a doorway and at least one simple window (no glass, no wooden nor metal frame inset) in each of them. I recall that the last building was the medicine room, built out of reach of the sick patients so they would be discouraged from raiding the medicines (a lot of it contained alcohol in those days). Tuberculosis was an epidemic in those days, and the doctor thought that the cave conditions would help "cure" the patients, which is actually the opposite of where you would want to be if you have tuberculosis. He himself died from it six years after the experiments.

There is the Bridal Chamber, where weddings were held prior to the 1920s in front of the Bridal Altar. The Bridal Altar is three stalactites formed close to each other. Each stalactite represents the clergyman, the bride, and the groom.

A story goes that a dying woman with bad marital experiences had forced her daughter to promise to never marry any man on the face of the Earth. But as nature would have it, the young lady did find someone and came up with the creative solution of marrying him "beneath the face of the Earth" without breaking her promise to her mother. She was married at the Bridal Altar.

Somewhere along the tour, the rangers showed us the effects of light in a particular passage far ahead of us which showed us that as we moved along, the light, or "ghost" as the rangers called it, would appear to move.

The last thing we saw was Monument Hall.

This was where the early guides would let the tourists write their names (for a fee of course) with their torches. One of the earliest date I found belongs to an "S.Fee" dated 1827 or 1829. There is an unattributed date close to it that says 1820 or 1826.

Another thing tourist did was build monuments of each state. Of course, the Kentucky monument was the tallest. Unfortunately, during the New Deal days, a lot of the monuments were taken down when the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) tried to clean up this part of the caves. Here is one that reaches up to almost touch a stalactite from the ceiling. The second one is another example of smaller state monuments.