Batty for the caves

We headed out early for the caves....about an hour's drive away. Of course they are in the process of redoing the parking area and it looked nothing like how I remembered it, what, like 25 years ago? Why would it?! Thankfully the spaces that were available fit the van just fine. If you want to see nervous people, look in the front seat passenger side of a 15 passenger van while the driver is trying to park in a space meant for a car the size of a roller skate. It'll make you laugh- and be thankful you don't drive a 15 passenger van.


Anyhow, on to the caves! As we got in line to walk toward the caves, the park ranger reminded us that we would be entering the cave at a pretty steep decent....800 feet to be exact. Hard on the knees and your legs start to feel kinda jello-ee after a while. Oh, and it causes kids to complain about their feet-at least it causes 4 year olds to do that.

Mexican Fruit Bats (don't quote me) migrate to the caves in late Spring and at night you can sit in an amphitheater and watch as the bats come out for their night flight. We were there about 2 weeks too early. Much to the relief of children who think 'bat' means a flying creature that wants to bite them! The view from the amphitheater is great-you can see right down into the opening of the cave-


After we navigated a few switchbacks, Bill stayed back and took this one looking down on us. It's a pretty crazy entry and I was very glad that neither Luke or Laurel were concerned or scared by the fact that we were quickly going to be swallowed up by a big black hole in the ground! Yay, hurdle #1 (well, actually #2 if I include parking as #1) cleared!

The part of the cave the bats inhabit when they are present in the cave is 3/4 of a mile off the path that the public uses. Along the way there were lots of signs full of information-

Now, when we were walking, walking, walking, the light used in the caves is more or less spotlight and back lights and sporadic in their placement-they light up the really cool stuff, basically. It's pretty dark and the colors are non-descript so when I downloaded the pictures onto the computer I was surprisingly shocked at what I saw-

WHITE!! The calcite that leaches through the cave ceiling and into the formations is so brilliant, but you don't really see it as you're walking through the cave! Some of the formations also have special names-like this one-The Whale's Mouth

and this one, the Lion's Tail. It's a stalactite hanging from the ceiling that looks exactly like-well, a lion's tail! Pretty cool...and this is one I remember from my visit as a kid.


Since the lighting is so different, getting good, non blurry pictures is pretty tricky. Even a steady hand takes blurry photos-

we did manage to get one of all of us after Bill found a ledge that had a perfect-or good enough-angle.

He set it on timer and as it took picture #5, Bill walked toward the camera that was still snapping away, this is what we got.....Bill as a ghost!! How weird is that?!

Long about now the kids were all dragging. We entered the cave about 10am, walked the first part of it then took the elevator up to get lunch (imagine that the elevator hasn't always been there.....I think it is a somewhat recent addition....THANK GOODNESS!). After lunch we took that SWEET elevator back down and walked the route of the Big Room. Yeah, we weren't finished with it until 2:45. Lots of 'my feet hurt', 'when are we gonna be done', 'are we done yet?', 'I wanna go home'...those kind of comments. And those were just coming from Bill and I!! No, in all seriousness they did a great job of hanging in with all the walking. Definitely a place to do in one day and be done..no need for a 2 day visit!


The next pictures that came out of my camera are hilarious....stay tuned!!!