Volunteer Princess Tour in Knoxville

A few months ago as I was walking across one of the Knoxville bridges towards downtown from my apartment, I snapped a picture of the bridge running parallel to it. The boat was between the two bridges illuminated in colorful lighting. 

I posted the photo on one of the Tennessee Facebook pages and got a request from the boat's tour company Volunteer Princess Cruises to use the photo in their promotional ads. I was not opposed to it and in return got two tickets to their Sunset cruise. I finally booked the tour and arrived at the dock where I met my friend.

It was pouring. I wore a hoodie over my summer dress, but was still pretty cold. "Well, here we go again," I thought to myself. "With my luck, it's going to rain the whole time." We boarded the boat and were seated at our table. For everyone else it was a dinner cruise, but we just had drinks. We were on the first floor of the boat; it looked like the second floor was reserved for a small party. There was no music, but as more people arrived the atmosphere was getting louder and louder. People were excited for an outing. Some wore shorts, others were in cocktail attire.

The boat departed 15 minutes late, and by then the rain cleared out leaving beautiful stormy clouds behind. We went outside to enjoy the humid semi-warm weather. The outdoor area was rather small with both front and back decks available.

Under the bridge that I photographed

The river was very peaceful, and we were the only people outside while others started to enjoy their dinner. The views of the city were just fantastic. I can imagine how beautiful they would be at night.

We sailed along the multi-million dollar houses that were nestled close to one another on the both shores. Gigantic homes probably housed a family of four with multiple rooms to spare. "What a waste!" I thought to myself secretly envious of these people who can afford living in luxury.

After an hour, the boat turned around, and we slowly sailed back to the dock. By then the sun was setting.

It was a lovely experience. I would do it again!

Point Lookout Loop - Panther Creek State Park, TN

Somehow I thought I was here before as I made the turn entering Panther Creek State Park. "No, I am mistaken", I countered. "I would have remembered..." The reason I started writing this blog was for me to remember all the places I've been, all trails I have hiked. Just a few months ago I WAS at Panther Creek and wrote a post on this very blog about it. The park looked differently. Why? Mainly because of the foliage. I last visited this park during the early spring when the trees were bare.

I was planning to hike Point Lookout Loop trail, a short 3-mile round trip hike. While I did not recognize the park having visited it before, the trail was indeed unfamiliar to me. On Sunday, there were only a few people there, so for the first hour I had the forest completely to myself slowly navigating the narrow pathway towards the lake.

The first interesting thing I encountered was a collection of weird forest items. I found it fascinating!

It was so peaceful and quiet, just birds and squirrels arguing who can scream or chirp louder. This is the type of noise I am comfortable with. My new Airbnb is right on a busy street, so I was craving some nature sounds (although, not to boast, I do have a pond in the back of the rental and my own private forest trail, albeit near the highway).

Entrance to my private trail in the woods

Pond

As I reached the lookout point, I noticed a boat docked on the shore. It looked like two men were fishing. I did not want to disturb them (really, I didn't want them to start a conversation, not in the mood for it), so I took a quick photo and headed back.

The other part of the loop was quite a bit muddier, but my hiking shoes were up to this challenge. As I was finishing the loop, I saw a sign for a mine. This is when I remembered that I indeed was here before. Later I checked my hiking map and saw that two loops crossed paths briefly.

Today's route

February 20th route

I still stand by my principle not to hike the same trail twice!

Southern Kentucky - Last Few Weeks

As the weather got nicer and nicer every day, I started going for daily walks to a Barren River Park to hike the longest trail next to the golf course. The in-and-out trail would get me close to my 10,000 steps and got me out of the house. It was definitely the routine I enjoyed in the world where routine is hard to set because of constant moving from place to place.

I also could now work from my porch more often.

The host took great pride in her flowers around the house, so I got the enjoy the full bloom of some of them.

The last full week was pretty ordinary, but the weekend was supposed to be quite exciting. A friend of mine who I haven't seen for over a year was traveling cross-country and decided to stop by for a day or wo. We spent a nice evening on Friday catching up and on Saturday went to Nashville. It was great experiencing the city with someone else. We walked around like in old times when the two of us hiked together, had lunch and walked more. I realized how lonely I have been living in an isolated place for over a month.

This was also the weekend when one of the Amish stores opened up offering their amazing produce. I was so excited! We bought fresh eggs and a variety of produce. The prices were very reasonable compared to a grocery store, and the quality - like produce I remember grown at home. The following week I also explored other stores. It was fascinating seeing old style cash machines that function without electricity. Everything was paid in cash as most Amish stores don't accept credit cards. Obviously. The Amish were very friendly, but non-invasive. They gave you time to look around without being rushed. I really enjoyed seeing them working in the fields together with their children. I started to be more and more interested in their culture and even watched a few documentaries about their traditions. I have a lot of respect for them for their hard work and the inclination to stick to the old style living. Interestingly enough, not all of them avoided civilization. Some of them were driving cars while others still stuck to their horse and buggy. Before my departure from this area, I went shopping. Let's just say I really liked their jams, and flour, and handmade soap...

My last week in southern Kentucky was coming up, and during their last weekend I wanted to go one last time to Nashville not knowing when I will be back again. On Sunday, I checked out Warner parks and hiked almost 10 miles in different trails. On Saturday I decided to go to Mammoth Cave National Park once again with a Violet City Lantern tour. The tour was led by another guide who was not as engaging as the first one, but walking with lanterns with no other lighting was quite fascinating. You could not grasp the idea of how big the cave was when you couldn't see it. Really, the only thing I could see was the ground in front of me, which is why I was glad that my first tour showed what the cave actually looked like. Only when the guide pointed out that we were in a gigantic room within a cave did I lift my head and look up. This was a shorter tour of about 2 1/2 hours, but the ambiance was completely different from the first one. I was glad I decided to register for it.

The evening before heading out from Southern Kentucky, I loaded my car. I was just starting to understand how to arrange boxes to fit everything. The morning of the move day, I cleaned the house (while typically you don't need to clean the Airbnb where you stay, I felt like I had to at least tidy it up), loaded last few things, put my screaming cat in the carrier and loaded him on the back seat and started driving. Within 30 minutes of screaming, he vomited and pooped all over the blanket leaving me with another lesson learned - better coverage of the carrier AND the blanket with paper towels is needed. Also, need to stop 15 minutes after the start of the drive to allow the cat to use the litter box. Finally, pet him once in a while for the first hour. We had another 3 hours to go, but he calmed down after that. We successfully left our first long term Airbnb on to the next one. This one would be near home back in Tennessee...

Harpeth Woods Loop in Edwin Warner Park & Mossy Ridge Trail in Percy Warner Park

Nashville has a lot of beautiful parks. As my time was coming to the end living in the neighborhood, I headed to Edwin Warner and Percy Warner Parks. What I didn't fully realize before arriving was that these were two separate parks, although located next to one another. My GPS landed me in Edwin Warner Park even though I was planning to hike Mossy Ridge Trail in Percy Warner Park. Well, I didn't want to just leave without exploring, so I ended up completing a modified Harpeth Woods Loop. 

While it was a pretty packed park, the loop itself had really nice spots where you can get some privacy with nature. It was a relatively short 3 mile loop, and I decided to get back on track with my original plan to hike Mossy Ridge.

After a short 7 minute drive, I was finally at the trailhead I originally planned to be. The trail was absolutely beautiful. There is something about hiking on the shaded path listening to leaves gently shuffling back and forth. The trail was just over 6 miles, so there were spot when I was completely alone in the woods. Some elevation gain got my heart pumping, and the gentle way down made me appreciate the power of deep breathing even more. 

I was tired after almost 10 miles of hiking today, especially not having hiked too much in the prior months. I was glad I get my body moving again, and it remembered how to do it with just a bit of hesitation.

Violet City Lantern Tour - Mammoth Cave

What a difference 27 days could make! Kentucky nature truly bloomed offering us the beauty of green fields, trees full of bright green young leaves and beautiful flowers.

Picture taken today, 4/30/22

The same scenery less than a month ago, 4/3/22

Today was the third time I visited Mammoth Cave National Park. I booked Violet City Lantern Tour, a 2.5-hour tour with just lanterns for lighting. This was something unique that I have never done before. The group was relatively large in size, but lanterns were distributed pretty evenly to allow enough light to walk safely. 

The experience was really different from Grand Avenue Tour in my previous post where the cave itself was very visible. Today, I didn't even feel the dimensions unless the guide pointed out that we were in gigantic rooms.

The only lit up "room" at the beginning of the tour

From there on it was seeing as they did years ago, with lantern light

Ghosts... Well, humans who appear as ghosts because it is so darn dark

Waterfall from God aka a stream of water coming from the ground

The tour guide was not as great as we had in the previous tour. He kept talking about the same thing over and over again, but he did provide us with a lot of historical facts about humans disrespecting the cave in the past. Even now occasionally they have idiots drawing their initials on the rocks. Some humans should just stay at home. Forever.

It was not as challenging as Grand Avenue Tour both physically and mentally. I would say it was the right amount of walking and history, although I still liked Grand Avenue more just because of our tour guide whose sense of humor alleviated any kind of tiredness after 4 hours of walking.

Southern Kentucky - Getting Bored

As the weeks went by, I was getting more and more bored. I barely walked 2,500 steps a day, I had no desire to exercise and started to gain weight. On the weekend, I would go to Nashville where I would get back to my routine of exploring, but during the week while working from home I was pretty bored. My GI issues have not resolved and nothing worked, so my boredom was exacerbated by terrible reflux. 

The weather was getting warmer and with that came the brown marmorated stink bug. I rescued the first few by carefully sliding them into the glass with a paper card and taking them outside, but then the war started. They came in pairs now. I would hear a buzz and know that I would need to look around, find the one that has arrived, quickly grab my vacuum cleaner and suck that devil up. This happened many many many times. The exterminator came twice, but just shrugged saying "ain't that a bad year for the stink bugs!". I really disliked them, but they didn't bother me too much.

I still enjoyed my stay there. One weekend, I went to Nashville to Cherry Blossom Festival and visited Radnor Lake afterwards. And the other day I went to Mammoth Cave National Park to just do some hiking. There was not as much hiking as I thought there would be, and most places were pretty remote. In the middle of April I had a work trip planned to Nashville, so I took my cat and stayed in a hotel while visiting local hospitals. It was pretty enjoyable to be able to get out and live in the city for a while. I was glad to return to my green peaceful environment. Besides, the spring was in full bloom, and the Amish stores were opening up offering their amazing produce. 

The weekend after I got back from my work trip in Nashville, I had my first tour in Mammoth Cave National Park. Grand Avenue tour was a 4 hour tour walking about four miles underground. It was an incredible experience, and our tour guide was knowledgeable and, most importantly, engaging and entertaining. The tour was fascinating not just because it was underground. I learned a lot about the history of the cave system and its geology. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about being able to stay underground for so long, but after half an hour I felt completely at ease. In fact, the overall environment was so stable with even temperatures throughout the cave that it was almost like being in an air conditioned building.

Grand Avenue Tour - Mammoth Cave National Park

My first tour of Mammoth Cave National Park was Grand Avenue Tour. It is a 4 hour adventure underground hiking 4 miles point to point. 

My tour was scheduled for 9.45 AM, so I arrived at 9.30 to make sure I have enough time to check in. I printed my ticket at home (the ticket was purchased on Recreation.gov in advance) and showed it at the Visitor's Center. The NPS ranger directed me to Shelter B 5 minutes prior to the tour's departure. I had 10 minutes to look around, so I used that time to get to know some of the history of Mammoth cave. Apparently, it is the longest cave system in the world (over 400 miles!) and it's been in existence for years. Geologically, it is a bit different from other caves. It does not have many stalactites because of the material that the "ceiling" is made of. It is dense enough to prevent water from depositing limestone in the shape of "icicles". There are a few "rooms" where you can see stalactites.

I headed to the meeting point, and precisely at 9.45 after a brief safety message we were loaded into two buses that would drive us 7 miles to the cave entrance.

I was a bit concerned with the prospect of being underground for 4 hours, but after the initial hesitation, I headed in.

My initial impression was, "this is so awesome"! The group was excited chattering away. Almost right away I realized it really will be dark even with all the lighting.

As we walked along the pathway, and I attempted to take videos, I knew half of my footage is just going to waste as it was pitch dark.

Don't look down - it's endless!

The pace of the group was moderate and we didn't have too much time to stop and take pictures until we got to several stops along the route where our tour guide gave us some historical and geological information.

Similar to stalactites that form in wet areas of caves, these are gypsum crusts and flowers in drier areas

One section of the "hike" was very narrow allowing only one person to pass through. I didn't get to take a picture of that, but documented in this video.

The pathway went up and down, but few areas were wet. It was a different experience than I've had before in wetter caves.

The last section of the cave was in a wetter area where I was surrounded by timeless stalactites. They look majestic, but the guide gave us a different perspective - these formations are filling in the caves. They are pretty, but at some point in time the cave will be gone because of them.

After a long walk, the group was tired. On the way back people in the buses were quiet and probably hungry. It was a great way to spend the day. One more tour to go in two weeks!