We had originally been planning to leave Mobile on Saturday March 15th but had delayed an extra day due to the storms. While this was definitely the safest option for us, it meant cutting our already short stay in Cullman, Alabama by an additional day. We thought that we would be arriving on Saturday evening and would have all day Sunday to explore in addition to the weeknights on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after John finished work. We were scheduled to leave on Thursday. Losing that extra day really messed with our plans.
As I said in our last post, the 4.5 hour drive ended up being closer to 6 hours due to traffic. Once we arrived, we got the house settled and ran out for a quick dinner at Gold Corral (because we were starving and a lot of local places aren’t open on Sunday nights) then came back to the house and pretty much passed out for the night.
On Monday afternoon, we took a few minutes to walk around the campground. The Palomino RV Resort was a little on the smaller side but all of the sites were paved and very level. In fact, we were actually able to leave the house hooked up to the truck which saved us so much time setting up and tearing down- which was really nice since our stay was so short. There was a really nice rec room behind the office with arcade games, ping pong tables, and televisions. They also had a little laundromat and some of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen.
Behind the campsites, there were two small lakes- one for fishing and one with a swimming beach. It looked like it would be a really nice retreat in the warmer months but it was cold and windy during our stay.
We spent Monday and Wednesday evenings doing our grocery shopping and just hanging out around the house. It was a really nice little break for us to just be able to relax.
We really only had time (and energy) for one adventure and we chose Rickwood Caverns State Park in nearby Warrior, Alabama. John got off work a little early on Tuesday afternoon and we made the 20 minute drive over. We arrived a little early and spent some time exploring above ground.
Because pre-gaming a strenuous walk through the caves with another strenuous walk above the caves didn’t sound like a great idea to me, I chose a nice spot along one of the trails and just sat on a rock in the sunshine, indulging my inner lizard. John chose to wander off and get lost for a while. Thankfully, they were doing some construction work at the park and he was able to navigate back to the Visitor’s Center by following the noise. If you aren’t sure of the terrain and have a tour booked at a scheduled time- don’t wander off.
Thankfully we made it in time for the tour and I’m so glad we did. The guide was really knowledgeable and friendly and we had a great time. The tour started with a walk up the hill and into a stone building that protects the cave entrance and then we descended a flight of stairs into the caverns themselves. A little background: no one really knows when the caves were first discovered as there isn’t really a lot of documentation about them. They simply were just always there and people knew about them but didn’t really care.
In the 1950’s, a Boy Scout Leader named Eddie Rickles and troop started exploring and mapping the caverns. It occurred to Mr. Rickles that this could be a cool commercial enterprise and he set out to make the cave a paid attraction. He partnered with Sonny Arwood for financial backing and enlisted the boy scouts to help widen and deepen the passageways, carve stairs, create the stone building that surrounds the cave entrance, and clear rubble from the pathways. In some of the passages, you can see where they used dynamite to blast their way through. Yes, this man had TEENAGE BOYS using DYNAMITE inside of UNDERGROUND CAVERNS. When I was in Girl Scouts, our troop leader (my mom) led us on some questionable adventures but never did we get to play with explosives. It is kind of impressive to see graffiti left behind by the scouts dating back to the 1950’s.
The caverns opened for public tours under the name “Rickwood Caverns” (a combination of the names Rickles and Arwood) in 1954 and ran until 1974 when the business folded due to lack of profits. The land was then purchased by the state of Alabama and reopened as Rickwood Caverns State Park.
We followed winding passages and would occasionally find ourselves in large open rooms. We have toured several caves on our travels but this one was a little different in that most of it is no longer a “living” cave. In a “living cave”, guests are prohibited from touching the walls and rock formations as they are still in the process of forming. The stone in a “living cave” will still appear wet and will be damp to the touch. The oils from human skin can clog the pores in the rock and prevent stalactites and stalagmites from growing. Our guide was excellent at not only pointing out different formations to us but also telling us what we could and couldn’t touch. We saw several amazing formations including a few natural bridges. My favorite was what the guide called “Cave Bacon”. It was a super thin sheet of rock with really cool stripes through it. They had placed a light on one side to show that it was so thin you could actually see the light through the rock. And it really did look like bacon. You can see it in the bottom right photo below- and remember, that light is on the opposite side of the rock from where the photo was taken. That’s how thin it is!
Among the features pointed out to us were several small fossils. These caverns were originally formed by an ancient river that flowed across the land and eroded the rock. Now, the caverns where guests walk are actually UNDERNEATH the original river bed. As a result, you can look up to see the the course that the river took AND to see fossilized sponge and coral. The guide showed us a few fossilized teeth and other aquatic organisms that had been preserved in the cavern walls.
And we didn’t only see evidence of extinct species- the cave is home to the Tri-Colored bat! We got to see several of these tiny little chicken nugget sized bats hanging from the cave ceilings as we progressed through the tour. They were so tiny and adorable!
The cave was nice and cool and the going was pretty easy – until we got to the very end which consists of a 110-step climb up the most narrow and steep stairs I have ever encountered in my life. They were also wet and muddy which made it that much more difficult to navigate as it felt that every step might be your last. The guide was not joking when he said this climb was “brutal”. We were all super winded by the time we reached the top but the guide was patient and encouraged us to stop for breaks along the way- thank goodness.
And unfortunately, that’s all we got to experience in the Cullman area. We have been told that there are several caverns and waterfalls and beautiful hiking areas but we just didn’t have time to see them. I said in the last post that we haven’t had our last visit to Mobile so maybe next time we can stop here and spend more time. But, Thursday morning arrived and it was time to move on to our next stop – Cave City, Kentucky.
Oh, and if there are any typos in this post- it’s because Herald supervised this writing VERY CLOSELY. While snoring. I didn’t have the heart to disturb her.
