Friday morning Poppa, Jessica, Uncle Mark, Jacob and Michael got up bright and early to head to Waco to visit the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Sweet Pea and I decided to sit this one out, mainly because poor Sweet Pea's schedule was all out of whack. The entire week she hadn't gotten her full 2-hour naps from 11:30 - 1:30 like she normally gets and she had been going to sleep late every night and still waking up at the same time. She was due for a day to sleep in and frankly, so was I!
So we got to sleep in that day and at 11:30 am we met up with them at the Inner Space Cavern in Georgetown. I had no idea that this place would be anywhere near as cool as it was!!! And to think, this place has been just a town away from us all this time!
When we first got on the tram to take us down into the cavern I had a very fleeting moment of claustrophobia as the guide told us that this was the only entrance/exit into the cavern. Did you know that in Texas, if you own the entrance to a cave then the entire cave is yours? This cavern is massive and because the family owns the entrance to the cave - it's all theirs! Talk about striking gold!
The cavern was discovered back in 1963 by the Texas Highway Department. They were drilling to determine whether or not the ground was stable enough to support a large highway overpass but kept losing their drill bits so they investigated further. Lo and behold, they discovered the cavern. They actually found remains of prehistoric mastodons, wolves and Ice Age animals in there. It was sooooo cool!!!
The tour that we were on was about an hour and 15 mins. long and covered about 3/4 of a mile. Michael was originally going to be pack mule with Sweet Pea in the backpack carrier but because of how low some places were, I ended up taking on pack mule duties. I will say this - that backpack carrier was not meant for a short person to use!!! But Sweet Pea had lots of fun. She took her dolly down with her and was hugging dolly the entire time. She had moments where she wanted out of the carrier but we didn't think that was a very good idea, so in she stayed.
About mid-way into the tour, our guide told us that there were only 2 places in the entire world where we could experience total darkness: the bottom of the ocean and inside a cave. She then asked everyone to turn off cell phones, cameras, flashlights, etc. and we all experienced absolute total darkness. It was the coolest thing. We saw nothing but blackness all around. So now we can say that we've experienced total darkness!
Here are pictures that Michael took:
the entrance to the cave
the guide is explaining how caverns are formed
The remaining pictures will mainly be of the different formations in the cavern. We weren't allowed to touch anything in the cavern because it's still a living cavern - meaning, formations continue to grow but would stop growing in any of the places that we get our grubby hands on. It takes about 100 years for the calcite formations to grow 1 single inch!
Sweet Pea hugging her dolly
Uncle Mark and Jacob
Stalactites (stalagmites are from the ground up)
"The Flowing Stone of Time"
a closer view - isn't it breath-taking?
this little "puddle" of water is actually well over 6-feet deep!
After the tour was over, Sweet Pea, Michael and I stopped in at the "restaurant" area of the place for a quick snacky-snack. Sweet Pea sure did love the freeze-dried strawberries!!!
That evening the adults (Poppa, Jessica, Uncle Mark, Aunt Jen, Uncle Chris, Aunt Joann and Michael and I) met up downtown at Ruth's Chris Steak House for some absolutely divine food. We had a great time relaxing, eating, talking about anything and everything under the sun and were all soooo stuffed afterwards. Thanks again Poppa and Jessica for dinner. It was soooooo yummy!!!
1 comment:
That is so cool!
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