Monday, June 8, 2015

The Third Longest Cave in the World...Who Knew?

Saturday night we stayed in Lander, Wyoming...famous for their bars...actually I don't know what they are famous for but they sure had a lot of those.  We then got up early and started on our way to see Mount Rushmore...we were nearly there, and  on an extremely wind-y road, Afton was driving, when we kept seeing signs for "Jewel Cave", well we had no data on our phones to look it up, so I made us stop.  No one was to happy about it...until we asked about it, and they told us it was the third longest cave in the world and the "Scenic Route" tour started in 20 minutes!  Perfect!   We paid for our tickets (it was kind of pricey) and we weren't sure of what to expect.  The last real cave we went to was Lehman's Cave in Nevada, about 7 years ago.

So we  grabbed our jackets (they said it would be cold down there) and waited for the tour to start.
When the tour finally started, we went down the elevator...down, down, down
It felt like an episode of "Warehouse 13"  

I found it totally fascinating! There were all kinds of stairs, we went up and down and around.  The geology was wonderful.It's amazing to think about how the cave was formed and  wonder if there is a big hole under us right now!  They've only explored 3% of the cave so far, and the have volunteers who come on cave exploring weekends, to explore more..Wish I lived closer to help explore it! 
Not sure how I'd really like it, without all the lights, and paved flooring...

Glad we stopped, and got to see another of our Heavenly Father's creations...you never know what lies beneath you!

South Dakota had some pretty sites!
But this was our view for a looong time!

So happy everyone got a long!I'm telling you these kids were fantastic in the car! 

Best tip I have for surviving a 48 hour road trip...air freshener!! (For many reasons we won't get to right now! :)) 

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