Mammoth Cave National Park

It's getting harder and harder to get to National Parks I haven't visited before. There aren't too many within reasonable driving distance of the DFW Metroplex. I was somewhat pleased at my own ingenuity when I realized that Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky is essentially right on the route to my mother's house in Ohio. And since I had the entire week of Thanksgiving off, and my mom had never had a holiday with either of our kids...

You see where this is going, right?

Taryn joined me for the trip.  We made it to Bowling Green the first day, then arrived at Mammoth Cave bright and early the next morning.  Late November is far from peak season at the park.  But there were at least still enough fallen leaves on one of the hiking trails near the visitor center for some nice fall scenes.

I love the starburst I got on this shot back up the trail, but not the lens flare.  Not sure how to get ride of it, either.  I've already had the body and lens professionally serviced.  I suspect the problem ma date back to my last visit to Great Sand Dunes and the windy conditions there.  Sand is not a camera's best friend.

It had been so long since I'd been out to shoot I didn't even remember to bracket my shots in the high contrast light at first.  I love that I'm able to get a soft, painterly effect when I do bracket and blend, as opposed to the "hyperreal" look that HDR can often yield.

No tripods were allowed inside the cave, which made shooting a bit challenging.  This was the only decent image I could get handheld, and that's with the ISO jacked all the way up to 25600.  In speaking with a Nikon rep recently, I learned that the low-light performance got much better in the next body after my D5200.  I have a really good idea what my next equipment investment might be!

Leaving the park we stopped at the Doyel Valley Overlook...

...and Sloans Crossing Pond, just to get a little bit more of the area's overall flavor.

The scenery above ground actually seems like it would be very pretty in pretty much any other season.  A return trip may be in the future!