The next day it was on to Double J Stables and Mammoth Cave National Park.  The drive was easy.  Yea - easy!  Only a few hours.  Okay - so it would have only been a few hours except..... 

    We were like the 5 musketeers - all for one and one for all.  Before we left we decided - for sure - if one takes a wrong turn we all take a wrong turn.  We're in this together - no matter what.  So we think we're getting close.  Barb is driving and Glenda is passing back directions. She keeps beeping at the end of her directions, so I'm sure she knows where we're going.  I see a route sign and mention it into the walkie talkie.  What?? - they didn't see it - do we turn or go straight.  We think we should turn but Barb and Glenda missed it.  No problem - sorry guys - find a place to turn - we'll see you later - we aren't going the wrong way.  So they tell us they'll find a place to turn on the tiny, winding road.  (Yeah right, a motor home pulling a 3 horse trailer. No easy feat!) We're heading on and all we hear on the walkie talkie is clip clop, clip clop, clip clop.  What is that?

    We find a place to wait - and wait - and wait.  Finally they are back in walkie talkie territory - they've turned and are coming - but what is that clip clop clip clop with the swearing in the background.  Then it gets closer - and closer - and here they are coming up the hill.  A big hill, a little Amish buggy and a big motor home  following - very very slowly. So slowly, the motor home almost didn’t make it up the hill!  It seems they were lucky enough to follow one of those darn buggies out and another one back. It was Sunday, and the Amish were all going home from their meetings.  (The really bad part of this story is that they were actually going the right way and we had made the wrong turn.  Oh well - such is life when you're thinking about chocolate and martini's)

    When we finally reached the Double J, there was a call box at the end of the drive. We had to phone in to see if we could enter the campground.  What's with that?  Turns out the driveway is one vehicle wide and about a mile long.  No turning there, and you surely don't want to meet another horse trailer coming out!  Anyway,  they let us in -(they didn't know us too well yet.)

LONG driveway into the Double J Stables	Sign at the rental barn.

    The weather was perfect, but the pessimists with us knew it would rain all week so we decided to take an afternoon ride as soon as we were set up.  The trail started right at the camp, so we were immediately in the forest.  We had talked with some of the other campers and got this bit of information.  If we just went off the trail a bit - loop to the left after the stream, look for the fallen tree (there were hundreds) and the old chimney.  Follow around and there's a cave. How cool is that?  Connie wanted to ride in, but Bandyt said NO! Connie finally went in by herself and found it was cold and dark.  Bandyt was much smarter than that!

Trail head at camp.	Leaving camp.
Come ON Bandyt	Ok let's try this way.
Brrrr. You were right Bandyt...Not a nice place. But it is my first cave.

 So the pessimists were right on Monday.  (But that was the only day they were right.)  We had really perfect weather all week for the horses.  Overcast a couple days but not too hot - about 70.  Since it  was raining on Monday we decided to visit Mammoth Caves.  Glenda is claustrophobic but we just volunteered to be last through - her best position.  The caves were huge, beautiful, deep, cool -- look at the pictures and enjoy.  It was worth the visit. 

 

On the way back we found the ferry that crosses the road.  A cute sign on the way down says “Road ends in water”.  It really did end in water. I wanted the ferry ride and was glad to have found it.

As the sign said, "ROAD ENDS IN WATER"	The only way across	Our Captain