In June 2021, I ventured on a Road Trip further than I've ever done before. It all started out when I wanted to go to Mammoth Cave National Park. Located in central Kentucky, it seemed to be a little too close to my home base in Marlborough, MA to fly, so the natural idea was to road trip down to the largest cave network in the USA. As fate had it, the shortest route to Mammoth Cave went right by Niagara Falls in NY. From there, the trip became fairly simple to plan since all I had to do was pull up a national park map and plan out the closest parks to the route.
As I said, Niagara Falls was naturally on the route, so that was the first stop. Cuyahoga Valley National Park would be the first national park on the drive. After that, would come Mammoth Cave. A friend of mine whom I was endeavoring this journey with wanted to go to Nashville, which at just 1.5 hrs from Mammoth Cave, it was a stones throw in terms of the whole trip, so I added it to the itinerary.
As I started to look at the route home, I noticed three parks along the way: The Great Smoky Mountains, the newest national park (as of July 2021 when I am writing this!) New River Gorge, and Shenandoah. Adding them all up, this totaled 5 national parks, and admirable amount for just a 6-day trip.
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls is probably the most famous water feature in the country (and maybe even the world)! Its vast size and impressive water flow make it a very unique location to see. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the border between the United States and Canada was closed to non-Canadian citizens, so seeing the falls from the Canada side was impossible, but that didn't deter my curiosity.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
After spending the night in Macedonia, Ohio, Cuyahoga Valley National Park was the next stop on the journey. For wandering travelers, there isn't that much to Cuyahoga Valley, a lot of bike paths, and tubing, but beyond that, I wouldn't consider it the most eventful national park. The first stop was at Brandywine Falls, which is a pretty large water feature cascading down layered rocks to a valley below.
The Brecksville-Northfield Bridge is quite well known at Cuyahoga Valley, many cyclists ride under the bridge along Ohio/Erie Canal Township Bike-path. The bridge is cuddled by trees only leaving a few angles to get a perfectly open shot (although, if I wanted to I could've gone into the river), so this portrait image was quite challenging for me to get just right. I feel this would be an awesome image to get at sunrise during the fall. The trees must get a beautiful fall color with morning glow could make this shot a winner.
Mammoth Caves National Park
Mammoth Caves National Park is the longest connected caves network known in the world at around 415 miles (that we know about). Yes, that is correct, there could be (and probably is) more cave network that has not been found yet in Mammoth Caves. However, the National Park Service gives tours on several of these cave networks which is very cool in itself.
Mammoth Caves is just outside of Cave City, a quaint little town in Western Kentucky established likely due to the tourism from the National Park. Just 20 minutes from this 'city', the National Park sits in a dense forest. Driving into the park, I could only think about what was below me; a vast network of underground tunnels.
Mammoth Caves requires a guided tour to see the caves. The main reason is because years ago, tours used to be self-guided. But people over the years started to touch things they weren't supposed to and even scratched the rocks by inscribing their names/initials/etc which the park rangers refer to as 'Graffiti'. Thus, self guided tours were limited and now most tours are ranger led, which is good because they know a lot about the caves and their history and convey that on the tour.
The first tour I went on was called the Frozen Niagara Tour. A short 0.5 mile walk round trip made this the best option for our late afternoon arrival. The Frozen Niagara Tour has one very unique feature to it which are called stalagmites.
Stalagmites, in essence, are drippings of calcium that form to what I recognize as icicles. They take thousands of years to form, and are not that common in Mammoth Caves. The Frozen Niagara tour accounts for about 70% of stalagmites at Mammoth Caves. When I looked closely at them, I could notice water from the humidity in the caves.
Along the tour, there is section which requires a little ducking, but it is cool to traverse this as everything is the natural shape and has not been human altered.
The tour then reaches a big opening (remember, this is all natural) where the Frozen Niagara is. This room actually had water dripping from the surface since it had rained the night before. Scientist have not been able to identify where the drip comes from. They put iodine on the surface and then use UV light underground to track where water comes from, but this 'leak' they have not been able to solve.
Descending to Frozen Niagara Falls is cool because there are stalagmites all around you. These rocks are amazing to see since they are truly frozen in time.
The next tour was the Historic Modified Tour at Mammoth Caves. This tour was vastly different, which I did not expect. It starts out at the Rotunda, which inexplicably, looks like just that. There are 3 ways to go in the rotunda. The path to the surface is one of the options, then other option is to go down 'broadway', and the 3rd option is the route we can back to the rotunda through but I'm not sure if it has a name, oops.
Broadway is named because the tunnel is so broad and long (I guess that should be self explanatory). It's amazing to think about that thousands of years ago, people came through these tunnels with nothing but sticks with fire burning for light. Our tour guide turned off the lights in the caves, and it becomes so incredibly dark. The simulation of complete darkness sets in how brave the people that first came into the caves were.
Nashville
Nashville was the next stop on the trip, but Nashville was more of a leisure spot, I didn't take many pictures while I was there. But there are two that are worth mentioning. The Parthenon is so oddly placed in Nashville. I don't know why it's there, but it is. And it happens to be in a beautiful park.
Honky Tonk row is more of what I think of when I hear Nashville. This was just awesome. There's live bands in every bar and Buy 1 Get 2 Pairs of Boots free at every store on the street. Obviously this is a must do in Nashville but if you went there and didn't visit Honky Tonk Row, I'm not sure why you'd even go there.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The journey then turned East as the Great Smoky Mountains was the next destination. This national park is the most visited national park in the country, with 12+ million visitors every year. I find this statistic amazing considering the other national parks out west, but numbers don't lie.
I only saw a very small portion of the park since I had already seen so much on this trip and was constrained by time, but what I saw was awesome. Driving along the Little River Gorge is a scenic drive worth taking. Mountain peaks just pop out of of the tree covered byway every few minutes and they are views worth pulling over for.
The Smoky Mountains are truly that, and the weather I experienced was serendipitously, smoky. Clouds rolled over the mountainous ridges one after another. Typically for photography, I would hate this, but I worked with the environment here to make some images I actually really like.
The photo below is taken at Clingsman Dome, the highest point on the park which is just at the North Carolina and Tennessee border. It's at about 6600' and it was unpredictably cold and windy, but sticking it out for sunset was essential since the journey had been so far to get to this point. The Application Trail goes right by this peak, and it is actually the highest point on the AT.
The cloud ceiling was below the peak which made for very cool inversion pictures (meaning the cloud line is below the line of sight). I only took one image of this cloud int he distance, and I'm not sure why it didn't stick more out to be in the moment, but I love how bright the light is on just that section of cloud while everything else is calm and cool.
On the way back to the hotel in Gatlinburg, TN, I drove by this view and couldn't pass it up. It's one of my favorite views from the trip and the post sunset glow in the sky makes this one of my favorite images I took on the journey.
New River Gorge National Park
New River Gorge was only established a National Park in December 2020. It is West Virginia's first National Park. The parks crown feature a river gorge which circuitously runs through West Virginia's mountainous landscape. Many rafting companies take to the water and cruise down the river. I wanted to see the New River Gorge Bridge, a massive arch bridge which is at the heart of the park. Driving over the bridge, you would never know how beautiful it is, or what is below you. Something about that made it feel special when I got to see if from the viewpoint.
Shenandoah National Park
Finally, I made it to the last stop on the trip. At this point, I was starting to get sick of being in a car most of the day, but knowing Shenandoah was the final destination lifted my moral. Skyline Drive is the main attraction at Shenandoah. It's about a 100 mile road twisting and turning through the ever changing altitude of the Application Mountains with viewpoints around every corner. Being at Great Smoky Mountains just a day before, had my expectations high for Shenandoah, and to be honest, it did disappoint in a way. Great Smoky was more interesting and the landscape was more diverse than Shenandoah, but I was really excited about the cloud cover at Shenandoah. I wanted to capture the perfect sunset to an awesome trip.
As the sun started to dip in the horizon, I found myself at the Rockytop Overlook; a westward facing viewing over the mountains and distant plains. As the sun neared it's nighttime destiny, an orange glow filled the horizon majestically glowing the farms of central Virginia. I raced to my camera as I knew it would only last seconds and captured an image to save a beautiful moment in time.
The sun then broke through the clouds for one last time before its ultimate setting at 8:50 in the evening. Moments after sunset, the clouds lit up pink like cotton candy floating in a deep blue sea. I knew I needed to take a panorama of this awe-inspiring scene and as I did, the best image from the trip emerged.
This was exactly how I wanted to finish my vacation. A perfect sunset, to a perfect road trip. And with that, I bid you farewell. Thanks to taking the journey with me.