Once I was done with my online business at Arby's, I looked out the window. The black sky rolling in and the wind bent trees suggested the beginning of a tornado. As I rushed out the door I heard one fast food patron say in his Kentucky twang, "I heard there's some hail coming in!"
Just as I was getting in my car, an old gentlemen getting into his said, "let's high tail it outta here!" With a smirk I replied, "too bad I'm camping at the National Park."
"You'll be fine," was his quick remark as he dashed into his car and drove off.
Barely seeing through the buckets of water splashing over my windshield, I drove through the tiny towns outlining the National Park. One in particular, Cave City, is a tiny run down town built around the tourism of Mammoth Cave. It's full of novelty gift stores, crappy mini-golf courses, and other second rate attractions. But one caught my eye through the haze of water on my windshield: Dinosaur World.
A park that boasts over 100 life-size dinosaur models in an outdoor realistic setting. I was in Jurassic Park heaven. Especially because when I got there, it was still thundering and lightning. Even though everyone else at Dinosaur World was running out (all 6 of them) I insisted on running in. Although the park mostly caters to those under 12, I would argue it's fun for all ages.
Except on a day like today, where the challenges keep coming. My main purpose for going into Dinosaur World was to get as many pictures as I could of me with these super sweet dino replicas. However, as you may recall from earlier today my good camera died. Now my crapy one was making me work for every picture as I had to turn it off and then on in order to take every single pic. Frustrating. But still, at $12.50, Dinosaur World was worth every penny.
Things dried off as I was there, so I figured I'd check back in at my campsite and survey the damage. To my surprise, my day's luck turned around as my tent still stood with minimal water inside.
A touch of daylight remained, so I hiked along some trails and saw where the subterranean River Styx's opened up to the surface world. I winded my way down some other trails and discovered that deer are just straight up attracted to me in this park. Three sat eating dinner no more than 15 feet away as I sat and watched the chomped up leaves roll down their long necks as they swallowed.
Got back to my campsite just in time for the rain. Sat in my tent entertaining myself with the mandolin and trying to get some stations in on my wind-up radio. Eventually the rain started coming down harder, and I found exactly where the leaky spots in my tent are. I plugged them up with dirty clothes I had lying around and slept as dry as I could.
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