Day 8… underground and in the air

We spent our last day in Kentucky at 2 extremes – way down below and way up in the air. But first we started with foggy morning in the parkAs the sun burned off the fog, it got warmer and warmer. Our first adventure today took up into deep underground into an old mining cave that flooded back in the 80’s. As we entered, Mike said “you will find a d— cave for us to climb around in, won’t you?” 🤣and while we loved our guide, Acelynn, we couldn’t help say… “We all see it. We all see it.” 🤣So, we geared up with helmets, lights and pfd (personal floatation devices). Acelynn said they weren’t life jackets, those would save your life. These were just to keep the bodies afloat until they came back for you 🤣 She was totally sarcastic and hilarious to us!Everyone loaded up in their kayak and off we went into the mines…

We spent an hour or so under the ground just paddling around in the dark. The guides had lights under their kayaks so they were easy to find and so we all stayed between them and no one was left behind 🥴It was really cool in the mines. We saw the underside of a sink hole that had filled in, and what tree roots looks like underneath We only chose the 1 hour trip and I’m thankful we did, because after an hour in 55° air temperature and 38° water, my fingertips were starting to get really cold!As we neared the exit, it was crazy to see the light again! Leo said he bet this is what it looks like when you see Heaven!We left The Gorge and had planned to do horseback riding but due to the rain the day before their trails were too muddy. So instead we meandered around, just seeing what we could find.

We stumbled onto a lake where could rent fishing poles, so we wasted an hour trying to fish…We didn’t even get a nibble, but it wasn’t due to the freshness of the worms… they literally took a scoop of dirt, and put it in a container 🤣So we gave up on fishing and decided to just play in the runoff area from the lake for a whileShockingly, somehow “just get your legs wet” turned into being completely soaked.

The boys said this was one of the best things we did. I completely agree boys ♥️There were 4 things we had read that we had to do when we got into Slad, Kentucky:

The Gorge Underground ✔️

The Natural Bridge ✔️

The Skylift

And Miguel’s Pizza

So we headed to the Skylift… the website made it seem like a normal ski lift, and it was…

It was until about the last 150 yards of it. And then the incline was about 70° 😬😳it literally went straight up! Although the boys did enjoy trying to get their spit to hit the bullseye 🎯 Whew! Once we reached the top, we decided to go all the way across the Natural Bridge – we only went a little ways onto it yesterday because of the rain. There aren’t many things that Mike just simply can’t handle, but heights are his Achilles Heel. So he held it down on the side and we ventured across.It was really beautiful but you know it is dangerous when in the brochure for the hiking trails it says “every year several people die from falling…” yikes! That’s one heck of a disclaimer 🤪

Now we tackled coming up the Skylift and now we had to go back down… Sometimes I think not knowing what you’re about to face is better…but we survived

So now, Skylift ✔️… one more to go: Miguel’s Pizza.

The pizza was delicious! Although we had a debate whether it was better than Luigi’s in San Diego, which 3 out of 4 of us think is the best pizza we’ve ever had. And we got to have another round of Ale8, including Cherry which isn’t as good as the original.What meal would be complete without dessert? So we headed down to the Ice Cream Shop and General StoreNow we did agree that this was some of the best ice cream ever – Mike said this would be in the top 5 of the best ice cream in his entire life! This is HUGE praise!