On the 3rd day of our Great Smokey Mountains adventure, Erik, Jason, Dasha and I went on an excursion to Tuckaleechee Caverns, because caves are cool.
Alena and Brittany had decided to stay behind to do some shopping, so in the morning we went our separate ways.
After making a large detour to get some coffee for Dasha, we got underway, which offered some fantastic views. We stopped at a gas station which happened to have an unobstructed view to take some pictures.
We continued on our way, and before long we had arrived at the cave location. We arrived just as a tour was starting and had to wait for the next one, so we had some time to explore the gift shop. Tours ran every 20 minutes, so we didn't have to wait too long.
Once the next tour began, we went down to the basement where the cave entrance was located, and heard the story of the caves discovery. It had apparently been discovered by some children playing outside. At the time, all they had was a small lantern so they weren't able to explore far.
When they told their parents about it, they didn't really believe them, so over the years they continued exploring it on their own using whatever tools they could get their hands on.
After returning from serving in WWII, they heard about another cave that had started offering tours, and so they decided to try it too. To this day, the cave is still owned and operated by the same family.
But enough history, it's time to look at rocks
The first major feature was a big room, which was supposedly big enough to hold a football field, though I don't think you could actually play a match in it. It was hard to get a sense of scale, but we knew that some of the stalagmites were as tall as a person.
In this room, they also did the thing where they turn off all the lights so we can experience true darkness. It was indeed dark.
Most of the cave follows the path of an underground river, and so the next part of the tour followed the river back upstream to a waterfall.
The caverns were amazingly beautiful. A lot of my pictures came out pretty blurry, but that's because taking pictures underground is hard 😦
We took the scenic route back, and tried to organize a place to meet up for lunch. However, the signal was super inconsistent, so we just had to pick a place, which ended up being Johnny Rocket, since Erik wanted a burger.
The last planned excursion for the day was the Titanic museum. Don't ask me why it's in Pigeon Forge, I couldn't tell you. What I CAN tell you is that it's not particularly irreverent.
Everyone is given a boarding pass with the name and biography of one of the passengers, and you find out what happened to them as you go through the tour. I got the boarding pass of John Woodward, who was the cellist in the string octet that played on the deck as the ship sank to calm the evacuating passengers.
As the son of a family of musicians, it was a poignant coincidence.
