Show caves seemed like the easiest way to go. It was wimpiest, but it'd get me in some big passage, even if there�d be a tour guide. The only Tennessee cave within two hours was Cumberland Caverns. There was some impressive stuff if I pushed the radius out another hour, but the last X-Files was on that night, and I wanted to catch it.
Then I saw a map of the area. Two hours due north would put me in Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky. I missed hitting Mammoth at Convention last year. It wouldn't be a new state for me, but it was the biggest cave in the world. Cumberland, on the other hand, would give me Tennessee caving, but when would Cumberland ever come up in conversations?
The decision was made by TAG. There's a grotto contingent that goes down to the Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia region every year, usually for the tremendous vertical caves. When I'd finally bother to get vertical gear, I could do some proper Tennesse caving. So I went to Mammoth.
I took the historical tour, since the wild stuff gets sold out. No formations on the historical tour, but forty foot ceilings are plenty pretty to northeastern cavers.
It would have been a perfect day, if I didn't forget about the time zone differences and miss most of the X-Files.