April 17, 2024 – Trip Day 17 – By Meagan
Ed – catching up on some back posts!
Another amazing day: we left the RV precisely when we meant to. No poopsplosians, nothing forgotten, lunch packed, nobody crying. We drove 45 minutes to Natural Bridge Caverns to take their Hidden Wonders Tour, a new cavern that opened last year. Alan, my mom and I had taken the Discovery Tour sometime in 2008 when we lived in Corpus Christi. It was definitely a good tour, but a new cavern sounded too exciting to pass up.
We arrived 30 minutes early, another rarely experienced phenomenon.
The pull-up and diapers were checked, straps checked on the kid backpacks and we waited for our noon start time. After pictures and a safety briefing, (no touching the caves you filthy humans and no getting hurt) we headed through the double doors and were immediately in another world. The cavern was warm and moist. There were beautiful formations everywhere. Flowing cave curtains, soda straws on the ceiling, stalactites, stalagmites and columns, this room had it all.
The stairs led downward around a central area covered in flowing cream colored rock. The guide explained this cavern formed when the water receded. and the limestone ceiling collapsed as it lost the support of the water. The calcium deposits over the fallen ceiling debris indicated that it was a stable chamber. The rock formations grow at a rate of one cubic inch per hundred years and there were a good number of tall formations on the rubble. This cavern was named the Jeffery Cavern, a combination of the first letters of the names of those who discovered it.
The tour continued downward and over the course of a half mile, we saw numerous formations, all easily visible with well-placed lights. There were a number of stops; the tour wouldn’t have been very that long without them. The blackout demonstration was great; everyone actually put their phones away and it was truly complete darkness. It really made me appreciate how much it sucks to not have darkvision in D&D: I could not see my hand just in front of my eyes. The people who found the cave were initially lowered in through a drilled shaft. It must have been amazing to see a cave for the first time and explore it. I think I’ll make spelunking a hobby after the kids grow up. Either that or I need to play more D&D to get that itch to explore out of my system.
The last room of the cave was a large plain chamber called the Ballroom. It had a large paved area that could be rented out for special events. I told Arya she should have her wedding here someday, but she was not amenable to that suggestion. Maybe one of the boys will make it happen. Jarek was the most excited about the cave tours (Good news, he told me later that he’d consider it.) We moved through the Ballroom to a dead end chamber. The tour ended there with a light show and dramatic music worthy of Jurassic Park.
Well, the cave exploration part of the tour ended there, but we got to ride the BAT back to the surface. The BAT, a Belt Assisted Transport similar to the moving walkways at airports, would carry us up the incline to the surface. After a five minute safety video, (I’m not kidding, people need to be told how to step on a moving walkway. My hope for the future of humanity took another hit today) we bravely stepped on and began the five minute journey back to daylight. I think my foot would have hurt less had I just walked up the ramp. The incline meant there was constant pressure on my sore heel. There were a couple of points where the belt did seem to be trying to shake us off as it passed over some rollers. I give the BAT two out of five stars, would not do again.
Alan grabbed our gigantic lunchbox from the car and we sat down near a school group at a picnic table. A very polite and sweet young lady said she was sorry to interrupt our lunch, but she had to tell us we had a very handsome baby. He hadn’t bitten me yet today, so I agreed with her and thanked her for the compliment. The kids chowed down on their sandwiches, oranges, and Izze’s. Randal and I shared cottage cheese and a banana, then he wanted an orange, then he wanted my fizzy water. I finally passed him off to Alan so I could have my peanut butter crackers without having to share. None of the other babies needed food like Randal does, he’s such a little beast. Hauling him around in the baby backpack was a great workout. My poor foot hated me for it, but I gotta lose weight somehow.
During lunch, Alan and I discussed doing the Discovery Tour with the kids, and we got four out of five on board. Randal and Garrett were up for another fun ride in their packs, Jarek was bouncing with excitement, Arya was enthusiastic, and Evan was a no. I told him to suck it up because the rest of us wanted to do it, and he did. Garrett, after moving a safe distance away, stealthily dropped a bomb in his pull-up. This was discovered only after a vigorous session of tag with his older brothers, at which point the pull-up’s capacity to contain the bomb was exceeded. After going through half a pack of wet-wipes and bagging up the stinky clothes, Garrett smelled much better and we bought our tickets for the Discovery Tour.
This tour was also great. There were many named formations, impressive drop offs, underground streams with flowing water and lots of opportunities to be dripped on. The explorers found the cave by crawling through a small tunnel which narrowed to 11 inches at its narrowest point. They also waded through mud two to three feet thick and crawled through a place they named Grendel’s Gorge to explore the entire length of the cave which is about 2.5 miles long. The part we saw on the tour was three quarters of a mile. The mud river has a nice walkway over it and the gorge got a path cut over it so people with toddlers can enjoy a nice easy walk. Randal fell asleep immediately after we entered the cave and Garrett followed soon after.
It must have been incredible to be the first to explore this cave.
The end of the tour took us through grand chamber over 300 ft long and 180 feet high. There was incredible beauty where ever I looked. The flow stones, the cave curtains, the thousands of soda straws on the ceiling, it was absolutely amazing. Even the bat guano in the middle of the room was fascinating: a giant pile of poop dated to 15,000 years ago and another at the top of the climb that was 8,000 years old. You could see the bat roosts on the ceiling; discolored black by the oils of their feet. The same process that disrupts cave formations when they are touched by human hands, the natural oils produced by human bodies, still prevents stalactites from forming on the ceiling where the bats clung so many thousand years ago. A kind lady took a family picture of us on the overlook and we walked back to the surface.
Garrett melted down as we headed to the car. He and Jarek had just returned from a successful bathroom stop, but as we were leaving. Garrett insisted he needed to go again. I told him “No, you just went and we need to get home.” and that was it. He needed to pee RIGHT NOW. I then said a few words I would soon greatly regret. “Just come outside, you can pee on the wall by the van.” I thought he would forget his tantrum after being distracted by snacks in the car. “NO! I don’t want to pee on wall!” he shouted and I thought, “well, good, I didn’t want you to anyway.” and we loaded up.
For the next thirty minutes Garrett us treated to the phrase “I want to pee on wall!” in a maximum volume demon scream as we drove back. After fifteen minutes of this, I turned back to the kids, who all looked as if they wished they had brought a roll of duct tape, and said “I am so sorry I ever said he could pee on the wall. I swear I will never, ever, say that again.” This got a couple of giggles. I tried screaming the dreaded phrase to see if it would scare the wall peeing demon out of Garrett, and the kids all found that hilarious and started laughing. Garrett was momentarily stunned and Jarek passed him a lollipop, successfully breaking the demon’s hold. I added this new technique to my tantrum breaking tool kit and the rest of the drive passed uneventfully.
