Caving

Monday's arrival of Uncle Tim (and his car) gave us the opportunity to go on a day trip on Tuesday. After much discussion, we decided to head up to Calaveras County to see the caves.

We drove through Angels Camp on the way and realized that we had just missed the Jumping Frog Jubilee of Mark Twain fame which I have always wanted to attend. The whole town was still all frogged-out from the festivities with frogs decorating the streets and store fronts.



After a picnic lunch and a short walk to the entrance of the caves, we donned our hard hats and listened to the instructions ("Claustrophobics please turn back now.") from the tour guide. Nothing heightens the anticipation of an adventure like safety warnings and putting on protective gear! Brandon was nearly giddy with excitement. I was a little worried about Natalie and Emily, as they only had flip-flops to wear on their feet, but other than getting a little mud in their toes, they were fine.



The kids were absolutely mesmerized inside the cave. We saw amazing rock formations, underground lakes, and even got a few cave kisses, or drips of water falling on us from the roof of the cave. There were several places where the trail went under low hanging rocks (thus the need for the hard hats) and over some pretty slippery terrain. It was just the perfect amount of danger for our little band of spelunkers. My favorite part of the tour was when the guide turned off all the lights and let us experience the total darkness--well, that and having the kids cling to my hands when they got scared.



After the tour, we did some sluice mining. The kids each got a bag of dirt from which to mine gems. In my day you could actually mine for real gold up in the Sierras, but I guess with the price of gold nowadays, gemstones are cheaper. After about 45 minutes worth of work, we had four nice little bags of semi-precious gem flakes to take home.



We also bought a couple of geodes that we took home to break open, so now we have even more rocks to lug back to Alabama. The whole trip was a lot of fun. Emily pronounced it to be "way better than the boring giant redwoods." Wouldn't that make a great quote for a travel brochure!