#warriorofdarkness
Day Four
Kentucky Mammoth Cave
It is 3 am and after sleeping in my car “all night” I am sweating my ass off! I didn’t get the best night’s sleep but I suddenly had a wave of energy take over and told me it was time to go. By now I have realized when I have that feeling I need to listen to it. I was called to go and that’s what I did, I started on my trek across the state of Kentucky from one end to the other.
I think there is beauty in driving towards a place you have never been with no real final destination in mind. I had a great conversation with my branding director who also happened to be dealing with a sleepless night. I explained the newfound notion of giving up control and going where I am led. It was a nice reminder that while I am in a vehicle, and my thoughts and mind can make decisions as far as where to go and when I go, there is much more of a journey to grow from by letting that decision be made from a place of the voice in my head guiding me than checking off a list I created before I was on this adventure. Expecting to be told to go back to sleep because I was talking crazy, my director embraced it with the excitement that would remain consistent from all of my team members as I check-in.
And just then I saw a sign that said. The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and I knew what had to be done. I looked it up on waze and saw it would only put me off course by 30 minutes and It would get me there 15 minutes before the sun was supposed to rise. And so I went and watched the sunrise over the distance casting a glowing shadow over the metaphorical log cabin that represented where honest abe was born. Now the park didn’t open till 9 am and since the gates were closed I definitely did not go in and I definitely didn’t do anything as crazy as sneak in to take pictures or anything like that!
It was time to get back on the road and the gps recalibrated and was sending me a different way but instead of being 30 minutes off course suddenly I was only 15 and as I took a right turn onto a dirt road I felt something might of gone wrong with the gps only to find myself driving through the heart of a huge farm and witnessing the rest of the sunrise in the most Americana way possible. Complete with baby cows wishing me a good morning.
I pulled into town in time to jump on a 9 am conference call for a nonprofit I volunteer with and had this sense of normality for the first time on the trip and to be honest that made me feel weird to be doing something that was pretty typical for me. It was almost like it was just another Monday for the first few hours and I started to almost get disheartened by the fact that my adventure was on pause despite the fact that I had no intention of shrugging my responsibilities.
Little did I know that this new sense of normal would be called to question just a few hours later…
It was pouring rain outside and so the idea of going on the hike that I was eyeing didn’t seem like the best idea at the moment.
One of my greatest fears is tight places. I am extremely claustrophobic, so naturally, I went 300 feet down into the Mammoth cave in Kentucky. About 2o minutes into our descent into the cave our guide dimmed the lights to demonstrate what it would have been like for the original explorers to walk through with torches. Then they turned the lights off to demonstrate what happened when the fire went out and I thought I was going to lose my shit. I kneeled down and put my hand on the ground to try to catch my balance. My equilibrium was completely off, my breathing became erratic, my chest tightened, and I wanted to get the hell out of there. “When the lights come back up I’m telling the ranger I need to go!!!!” but then I thought about the fact that if the original explorers quit then this might be as far as this cave was ever explored and decided to push through. We made it to about 300 feet in areas where I had to crawl through rubbing against narrow cracks in the cave. As we began to make our ascent all of a sudden the power went out and this time it wasn’t on purpose and there was no way to turn the lights back on. So I went down on one knee and put my hand on the ground as I knelt there in total darkness, but the fear was gone. It felt peaceful and without panic. Logic took over, people know we are down there, help will come if needed. The stillness had some beauty, sounds were deafened, there was no sight of light, and there was weightlessness in the atmosphere. And suddenly the lights came on and we made our way back to the cave exit.
While in the cave I met some fellow cross country travelers who told me about a Garden of The Gods in Illinois and so I drove off into the sunset and into the Shawnee national park where the wildlife came to life at night and made themselves known. I car camped with an entire herd (is herd the right word?) of deer.
It was time to get back on the road and the gps recalibrated and was sending me a different way but instead of being 30 minutes off course suddenly I was only 15 and as I took a right turn onto a dirt road I felt something might of gone wrong with the gps only to find myself driving through the heart of a huge farm and witnessing the rest of the sunrise in the most Americana way possible. Complete with baby cows wishing me a good morning.
I pulled into town in time to jump on a 9 am conference call for a nonprofit I volunteer with and had this sense of normality for the first time on the trip and to be honest that made me feel weird to be doing something that was pretty typical for me. It was almost like it was just another Monday for the first few hours and I started to almost get disheartened by the fact that my adventure was on pause despite the fact that I had no intention of shrugging my responsibilities.
Little did I know that this new sense of normal would be called to question just a few hours later…
It was pouring rain outside and so the idea of going on the hike that I was eyeing didn’t seem like the best idea at the moment.
One of my greatest fears is tight places. I am extremely claustrophobic, so naturally, I went 300 feet down into the Mammoth cave in Kentucky. About 2o minutes into our descent into the cave our guide dimmed the lights to demonstrate what it would have been like for the original explorers to walk through with torches. Then they turned the lights off to demonstrate what happened when the fire went out and I thought I was going to lose my shit. I kneeled down and put my hand on the ground to try to catch my balance. My equilibrium was completely off, my breathing became erratic, my chest tightened, and I wanted to get the hell out of there. “When the lights come back up I’m telling the ranger I need to go!!!!” but then I thought about the fact that if the original explorers quit then this might be as far as this cave was ever explored and decided to push through. We made it to about 300 feet in areas where I had to crawl through rubbing against narrow cracks in the cave. As we began to make our ascent all of a sudden the power went out and this time it wasn’t on purpose and there was no way to turn the lights back on. So I went down on one knee and put my hand on the ground as I knelt there in total darkness, but the fear was gone. It felt peaceful and without panic. Logic took over, people know we are down there, help will come if needed. The stillness had some beauty, sounds were deafened, there was no sight of light, and there was weightlessness in the atmosphere. And suddenly the lights came on and we made our way back to the cave exit.
While in the cave I met some fellow cross country travelers who told me about a Garden of The Gods in Illinois and so I drove off into the sunset and into the Shawnee national park where the wildlife came to life at night and made themselves known. I car camped with an entire herd (is herd the right word?) of deer.
“Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of the unknown, and sometimes in the middle of unknown you find yourself.”