celticdragonfly

fordprfct has talked about the various cave tours he went on with his family while growing up. I have envied them. So when the word "cave" came up in an Apples to Apples game at selenite's birthday game day earlier this month, I said darn it, let's go to one! So we did, last weekend. We went to Natural Bridge Caverns, and took the North Caverns tour. It was marvelous. It's officially 70 degrees in there, but with the 99% humidity, it feels like high 80s. We went down 180 feet and came back up. Whee, 18 stories down! I was enjoying the tour very much. Also seemed to be the one person with answers for the stuff the tour guide was asking - yes, mythology and geology are both interests of mine, but I did learn new stuff.
( Pictures behind the cut )
Afterwards in the visitor's center you can see the bones they've found in the cave - the bear jaw is impressive, the bat jaw is amazingly tiny. There's a list of all the species they've found bones of in the cavern. We were reading through the list, lots of types of mice, voles, shrews, bats, raccoons, yeah, yeah - then near the bottom we saw "Bison". I said "I wouldn't have expected a bison in the cave!" fordprfct replied "The bison didn't expect it either!"

I may or may not have another short Alanna video afterwards, it failed the first time.

Outside afterwards we spent some time at the picnic tables - my, it was such a beautiful day! I got to see woodpeckers pecking at the trees, and a cardinal.