By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers
Another spontaneous detour on our 6-month journey across America took us to Russell Cave National Monument just over the state line from Chattanooga outside of Bridgeport, Alabama.
The beginning of seven miles of Russell Cave
The “why” to visit there: it’s “an archaeological site with one of the most complete records of prehistoric cultures in the Southeast. Thousands of years ago a portion of Russell Cave’s entrance collapsed, creating a shelter that, for more than 10,000 years, was home to prehistoric peoples. Today it provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 10,000 B.C. to 1650 A.D,” to quote the National Park service handout.
The “caution” of visiting this remote park is the RV parking is very limited. There are two spaces for RVs and buses, but I gave up maneuvering into them with our 50-foot truck and trailer length, parking instead across car spaces. Luckily, since only two other visitors showed up while we were on site, there was plenty of room for us. Smaller rigs, 5th wheels and motorhomes probably have less trouble than our 28-foot TT.
And at this point, I’ll mention that when Ranger Antoine Fletcher was listing the numerous species of animals in the park, he said they have about everything but Bigfoot. I corrected him immediately – our trailer is a Bigfoot. We were also impressed to hear there are more than 700 varieties of plants in the park.
The sad news is that all but one species of bats that inhabit the caverns are dying off from a disease named ”white-nose syndrome,” a fungus which has killed a million of them. Important to you? Yes, because bats propagate fruit trees, and their absence could change how you eat.
Russell Cave winds into the mountain seven miles, although visitors are only given a view of the main cavern from a boardwalk, where the paleo-natives lived. From our viewing perspective, Antoine traced the culture’s progress from the earliest days, explaining how remnants of the past told archeologists a great deal about the lives of the Indians more than 10,000 years.
What was most interesting was how these isolated people learned to adapt to their surroundings and how they used their own inventiveness to make their lives better, including the “altalt” (more on that in a moment).
As is our custom, we began our visit by watching the 7-minute film that gives an overview of the park, its scientific exploration and its early inhabitants. From there, I
I saw turkeys before they sensed my presence
undertook a one-mile hike that turned out to be closer to two miles, mostly weaving my way up the mountain with numerous switchbacks. I encountered no black bears, no rattlesnakes, no mammals, but I sighted a clutch of turkeys at about 150 feet before their sensitive noses detected me, and they scurried away.
Antoine launches a dart from his atlatl
Back to the atlatl: Antoine showed us how this is an improvement over traditional spear-throwing, and gave members of our group the chance to give it a try. In checking on the spelling, I found out similar devices have been found in France and the Far East. It may have come to the Americas when early man crossed the land bridge from Asia to Alaska. It’s a long way from there to Alabama, but when you’re talking about millennia, it isn’t hard to believe it happened that way.
More information about Russell Cave National Monument is available at http://www.nps.gov/ruca/index.htm
Barry launches a dart, but not quite as far --Good action photo by Monique
Barn Swallows in Russell Cave -- the surviving bats were further back
COMMENTS from previous Never-Bored RVers blogs:
BARRY’S NOTE: I’m not sure I understand all of this, but I will say this couple has ambitious plans. I welcome your input at neverboredrvers.com, which I’ll pass along.
FROM HAROLD: My DH has 2 more years before he retires and we are able to make our trip of a lifetime. Yes, we have owned an RV before but it has retired before we did, so will be buying a new RV and tow truck too.
We plan to leave the Houston area on a 4-month trip past the Artic Circle and poke our toes into the ocean as far north as we are able to go! We may leave our trailer behind and make those last few hundred miles in our truck only. His spread sheet continues to grow as he doesn’t want us to miss a thing and still allow an extra day here/there if it is more beautiful and fun then we had planned too.
So we are all ears to anybody that has made the trip to Alaska and back. Yes, he does plan to have 2 extra tires for both the truck/trailer as well and a generator bolted down on the electric “slide” in the back of the truck so we will be able to do any “boondocking” should we tire early or late and just need to rest.
One of my main concerns is to find a good washer/dryer for our clothes while on this long trip. We are already planning many others issues as he always has the safety issue first. Stocking up on food, cooking/freezing as much as we can ahead of time to save time viewing things instead of cooking. But also looking for new ideas and ways to cook while traveling.
BARRY’S NOTE: And this brings up a favorite subject when talking with non-RVers is the worst part of Rving for the many of us who don’t have on-board laundry facilities. What we have found over the years is that often the public Laundromats (or washaterias, as we used to call them) not located in campgrounds are in areas of town where people don’t tend to have their own washers/dryers at home – in other words, in the less affluent neighborhoods. Despite this, most of the ones we’ve settled on have been fine, but we have some almost-horror stories, also.
And an additional comment, dryers rarely seem to get clothes dry, unless they scorch them. It’s all part of the RVing experience.
FROM ANNE MONSON: Hello — My friend just forwarded a link to your site to share info about RV parks in Nova Scotia. I did read that comment, but went on to read more. It looks like much can be learned via sharing, so I will subscribe to your blog. It looks like we can learn a lot from your travels into Canada this spring.
My husband and I (60 and 62 yrs) will be leaving Albuquerque in June for a 2-3 month trip with our 19′ travel trailer. We are heading up north to Winnipeg, then east on the Trans-Canadian Highway to Nova Scotia. We plan on spending several weeks exploring the region. We will return home via a more southerly route thru the US. I think we will travel well over 12k miles!
Last summer we spent 3 months traveling to and around Alaska and traveled nearly 10k miles, so this trip to Nova Scotia will be a record-breaker for us. At least I think the roads will be a lot better this time around!
Looking forward to reading more about your travel experiences! Happy travels ~
Craig and Linda Dresser — Barry and Monique, First of all let me tell you how much we enjoy reading your blog and all the handy tips on traveling around in an RV. We have been weekend RVers for the past 10 years and have never traveled for longer than 2 weeks at any one time. This year we will be retiring and traveling more extensively for 2 – 3 months at a time.
We plan on spending the winter in Florida beginning December 1st and will be staying at a couple of different campgrounds in Dec. and then we will spend Jan. and Feb. in one place.
I was wondering if I could pick your brain regarding what you do about mail forwarding when you travel for an extended period of time. I have found some forwarding services and was wondering if that’s the way to go. I know some campgrounds accept forwarded mail and some do not. I have found the best source of knowledge comes from those who have “been there, done that,” so anything you can tell me will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Rookie Snow Birders,
BARRY’S NOTE: First, I’m not sure that if you have a choice, my brain is the best pick. It only works intermittently.
We had a son forwarding our mail for about year, but, although he never complained, it was a burden on him with all the exigencies of work and family life. We chose a mail–forwarding service in South Dakota, one of the few that has no state income tax. Since we have no permanent home at the moment, it doesn’t matter “where you are from,” so we list South Dakota. [Others are Alaska Florida, Nevada Texas, Washington and Wyoming].
I think Good Sam Club is in Florida; the Escapees RV Club is in Texas. If you keep your home and use that as your home state, it doesn’t matter. Many parks accept forwarded mail. When we don’t know where we’ll be staying for a few days, we ask our service to send it to General Delivery along our route. When we return to Key West for the winter, we’ll get a P.O. box for a few months.
And one further comment – you can expect glitches in the process of retrieving your mail, like having it forwarded to a post office that doesn’t accept General Delivery. But, that’s all part of the adventure.
From the “Never-Bored RVers,” We’ll see you on down the road.
Because of the numerous Spam comments on this site, the comments section has been deactivated. Please email us at neverboredrvers@gmail.com and I will pass along your comments.
http://blog.rv.net/wp-content/icons/BarryZander64.jpg
© All photos by Barry Zander. All rights reserved