Oldtown Covered Bridge

Sunday
Beautiful day today - clear blue sky. We went hiking again in the morning - drove over to the lodge and did a loop from there, including a spur down to the lake at the dam - lots of butterflies flying around. We saw Smokey Bridge, the biggest natural bridge in the park - its really huge, and Raven Bridge. Then after lunch we went on the tour of Cascade Cave, which is named for the underground waterfall it contains. We also saw several small bats, hanging from the ceiling. There is another cave, called Bat Cave, which you can visit over the summer, but there are no more tours after the beginning of Septmeber, as over the winter months it becomes a hibernation center for the endangered Indiana bat.

We then went in search of Oldtown Covered Bridge. I had seen a postcard of it in the Welcome Center where we bought the cave tour tickets and I love covered bridges so I wanted to see it, but we didnt know exactly where it was - only the description on the postcard. We were just about to give up when we came across it. It is much longer than it appears in this view (187 ft), as much of it is hidden by trees, but I like this shot because of the reflection. It crosses the Little Sandy Creek, which runs into the nearby Ohio River. It was built in 1880, and was reconstructed in the 1990s. Covered bridges were built for two reasons - since they appear similar to barns, it is easier to transport cattle across them without startling them, and secondly, to act as a structure for weather protection over the working part of the bridge. A bridge built entirely out of wood, without any protective coating, may last 10 to 15 years, but builders discovered that if they were protected with a roof, the bridge would last much longer.