KY & OH Trolls & Mammoth Caves

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Tuesday, Aug 25:

4 mi ruck at Renaissance Park playing Ingress with MACV1s wearing 30# in the rucker v3.  It was a recovery ruck, since my legs were quite sore from the DEKA Ultra.

Wednesday, Aug 26:

In preparation for TTG, I added a 45* offset red dot to my LMT FDE, which only had a 1-10x LPVO (Razor G3) with some not-so-great eye relief previously.  I zeroed it at 25yds.  It was my first experience with an offset dot.  I had held off on trying one for the longest time, since it would add complexity to the techniques that I'd have to train to use effectively.  After comparing the eye relief of the Swaro to the Razor, though, the limitations of the Razor at 1X was too noticeable to ignore.  I had a QD mount for it, so it would be easy to remove, if I ended up not liking it.  It did take up space that the Steady Shot used to take, though, so I have to choose between stability and the quicker short distance shots.  TTG doesn't allow added support accessories, though, depending on what qualifies, so at least it wasn't a tradeoff in that respect.  There was no choice there.

For the first time, I did a rifle-based lesson with Emily.   We did high ready, low ready, and hunter ready (a super high low ready), discussing pros and cons and trying them out.  Different instructors have slightly different techniques or tips or tricks that work for them, so I still learn things, even though I've taken many rifle classes before.  Depending on your role or your goals, different factors and tradeoffs can be in play, affecting which techniques you use.  It's helpful to understand them all, since even my own situation might change depending on what type of competition I'm doing, or if it's a even a competition scenario.  It's helpful to have the perspective of another female, too, since our bodies can be built differently, so what works for a big guy might not work as well for someone who's smaller, and the big guy might not even realize that something could be an issue or know how to deal with it.

We practiced wider vs narrower target transitions... you might have to have your head come off the stock a little bit more for a wider one.  Eyes first, and go fast then float the small bit at the end to avoid over/undershooting the transition, just like with pistol.

I practiced transitioning between the LPVO and the offset dot.  It was hard to find an ideal spot for the butt stock for the 45 degree position, since it's a very different angle from the usual one right below my eyes that's as centered as possible.

We also worked on seated, prone, and kneeling positions.

Afterwards, I zeroed my other CZP10C that had the swapped red dot.  Doing the reverse adjustments worked.

Thursday, Aug 27:

18A "Upper Body Prep" in 23:51, then "Chest Barbell" in 31:12 RX-ish for the first time in terms of exercise sequence, but I used a lower weight of 2x25#DBs.  Afterwards, I did a shakeout row of 10 min covering 2052m on the Aviron machine with 113 watts, 81 cal, 266 strokes, 2:26 500m ave split.

Dry fire...

- 2 mags of draw and shoot... I could tell that I was rusty, starting slow, although it did start getting better within the first mag

- 2 mags of index to defeating the ALS

- 2 mags of post-ALS to 2-hand grip, with a strong right hand grip that I was happy with, which was maybe easy to get since this drill started with my hand already on the grip and on the ALS

- 2 mags of compressed to on target... need to consciously make sure I'm not turtling my neck, which got better in the second mag

- 2 mags of uncompressed surprise break

- 2 mags of the whole thing, with the single cue of throwing the gun at the target being the most useful, vs trying to think of going fast on each individual step

- 10 min of static multiple targets

KY TROLLS

Trolls that I've seen so far...

1. Big Pete in Charlotte, NC

2. Asheville Trolls - A Field Study (x12)

3. Sally in High Point, NC

4. Raleigh (x5) + Grandmother Tree

5. Rita in Victor, CO

= 20

I looked for more opportunities to see trolls.  The ones in Rhode Island and Maine looked cool, but they're kind of far away.  KY had some cool-looking trolls.  I discovered that OH wasn't far from KY.  It wasn't far from Mammoth Caves, either, which my sister and I had enjoyed visiting when we were kids.  She really wanted to go back, so we planned out a trip.

My sister's not as obsessed about the trolls as I am.  She had only seen Big Pete so far.  She was OK with missing out on the troll part of the trip, based on her schedule, and prioritizing the caves.

My parents and I drove out there, and my sister would meet us by plane partway through the trip. 

On the way in, we stopped at a Buccee's.

Buccee's is a destination unto itself.

We got to Bernheim Forest just in time to browse the gift shop really quickly, before heading out in search of the trolls on a little looop.

There are pics of Little Nis in the fog, which is what first drew me to him.  No fog today, though.

I started doing rubbings of the name plates, with my Buccee's crayons.

You can see signs of age in some of these older trolls.

Still beautiful, though.  The age gives it character.

You could walk through a field to get to the next troll.  For those with mobility issues, you could also drive to get most of the way there.

It's fun when you run into some non-trolls signs of the trolls, too, or other troll-like points of interest.

The next troll had a big sign of age.  By the following week, that broken foot had been fixed.  The other foot looked new, like it had already been damaged and repaired.

The set of trolls here have a story.  This is the pregnant mom, with 2 kids.  The husband went away to Colorado for some reason.

To get to the next troll, there was more walking, past some ponds and through some more wooded trails.

People decorate her hair.

Some people also wrote their names on her for some reason, but you're not supposed to do that.  If you really want to write your name down, you're encouraged to do it in her log book, instead.

I always like their feet.

This troll had a leaf-shaped arrangement of rocks next to it.  It was really big.  It's hard to tell how big it is from the picture.  Maybe 50yds long?

Family...

People on the troll FB groups said to not miss the Tin Man.  It's at a different part of the park, in another section.  There was still much of the park that we didn't get to see, I feel like.  

By the time we saw the Tin Man, it was starting to get darker, though, and we already had a long day of driving and still had a little more to do before we got to Louisville, where we would be staying for 2 nights.

OH TROLLS

The next morning, we made the drive to Dayton, OH, to see the trolls at the Aullwood Audobon.  If it weren't for the trolls, I wonder how much less traffic they'd be getting.  We were now into Saturday, so these trolls were much busier than the ones we had seen on Friday.  

There was a visitor center with a place to watch birds, as well as some exhibits.  

These trolls had a story, too.  The girl troll saw planes in the sky and thought they were trolls and wanted to talk to them, but they didn't respond.  She built a set of wings so that she could try to go up to them.

There was a platform that you could go up, to get a different view of this troll.

There was another mama by a bit of water, nestled away in the woods.

There was a special event or construction or something that made us take a little detour to get to the next troll, but we found it, along with the "eggs" that they thought they found.  There used to be a "nest", but they took it down after it deteriorated.

On our way back on the out-and-back route, we stopped by the farm to look at the animals.

Before heading back to Louisville, we stopped by the Cincinnati Art Museum.  There was a lot to see, so we had to rush through the last parts of it.

We picked up my sister at the airport and went back to the hotel.

MAMMOTH CAVES - VIOLET CITY LANTERN TOUR

The next morning, we headed back south to go to Mammoth Caves.

You need to pre-purchase tickets for the cave tours.  We were on top of that when they were released weeks ago.

Before our scheduled tour time, we did a little trail.

You don't want to be late for the cave tour, but there's a lot to see at the visitor center.  They have good exhibits and explanations of how the caves were formed and how they were discovered and what lives in there.

We had two days planned at the caves.  The tour we were most excited about was one that's hard to get tickets to.  It's a lantern tour called Violet City.  Most other tours are pre-lit.  On this one, you experience the caves the way the original explorers would've.  They had about 1 lantern for every 4 people on the tour, which made it important for everyone to stay together.

The caves are nice and cool year-round.  It might even be too chilly, if you weren't walking the whole time.  You get breaks along the way, where the ranger tells you about the history of the caves.

After you finish the tour, you disinfect your shoes, so that the white nose syndrome that infects bats is less likely to spread to other caves that you might visit in the future.

We got dinner at Long John Silver's and Subway afterwards.

MAMMOTH CAVES - GRAND AVENUE TOUR

For our second day, we chose to do the Grand Avenue Tour.  It's their longest distance tour, and it gives you a lot of variety in the type of cave geology that you walk through.

It's wild to me that we still don't know why the ancient people harvested gypsum from the caves.

There was one place with great acoustics, due to big openings on our level and one level below.  There was a girl who volunteered to sing a song in Basque.

The "snowball" room looks like dirty snowballs were thrown against the ceiling.

There were places with antique graffiti.

Narrow caves have always been really cool to me.  It reminds me of Antelope Canyon, which I haven't been to, but we passed by it.

You end with views of Frozen Niagara.

We covered about 4 miles.  They do have a couple of real restroom stops during this tour, but I didn't need them.

Afterwards, we did the Cedar Sink Trail.  I think the rest of my family was done with walking by then, though.  We made the most of the day!

Tuesday, Sept 1:

The next day, time to go back home, with a stop at Buccee's again.

At night, I did 18A "Lower Body Prep" in 18:46, then "Lower Push BW" in 36:55, which felt pretty good, other than a little instability in the ribs.  I did a finisher of 2x [2 min OH hold and 50 4ct flutter kicks with a 45#SB]