Into the Depths

Today was a fairly laid back day. We did make it to breakfast which was an improvement over yesterday. After all five of us enjoyed pancakes at a local cafe we headed off to Jewel Cave a stone's throw (70 miles) down the road from Mount Rushmore. We got there with relative ease to discover that there would be a wait before we could head into the caves. We got our tickets and used the extra time to get lunch. We headed to Pizza Hut and tried out the P'zones which were delicious. If you haven't tried them yet consider this your call to arms. After lunch we headed back to Jewel Cave.

Fortunately our National Park Pass which has already paid for itself allowed us to go on a cave tour for free. Sherrill has had a bit of difficulty with stairs and the free tour had very few stairs involved. The tour was not long but it had lots of information and an elevator ride that took us down 238 feet in under thirty seconds with no fear of any pizza hitting the floor.

The second cave tour was a lot more strenuous and Sherrill correctly decided to sit it out. It was called the Lantern Tour because the only illumination was from lanterns that we carried. There were tight passages with interesting names like Fat Man's Misery and Tall Man's Misery. There was one section in which we went straight down about ten feet called Trap Door. We all had to work together to shed light on the footholds and handholds. After travelling through many passages and rooms we got to the halfway point of the tour where we blew all of the lanterns out. I have never seen pitch black before today. We relit the lanterns and since the relighting is a bit involved I volunteered to lead the group back to a pre-arranged location. When I volunteered the group kidded me in good nature since I had previously taken a wrong turn when we had gotten strung out earlier in the tour. I went about fifity feet down the wrong path before realizing that the group must have gone a different way since the path diminished to the size of a 17 inch computer monitor. I was not unhappy about the detour since there were many crystals on the wall that we never would have seen otherwise. The tour lasted two hours and it is my current favorite thing that we have done. The boys also indicated that it is at or near the top of their lists. (The waterpark is definitely still very high on all of our lists)

The photo in which Nathan is crawling through a rectangle is the test to see if a person is qualified to go on the spelunking tour. Nathan and Conner slipped through easily. Chrisopher and Sherrill did not try. I proved that I am not a candidate for spelunking. With my claustaphobia I would never have really attempted spelunking but the rectangular box was a temptation I could not resist.

Tomorrow we are off to Casper, Wyoming with no clue of what activity we will do there. After I post this I'm going to do a little looking and see what I can come up with.

Trip Statistics:
Total Distance Travelled: 2,263 miles
Police Traps: 9
Tickets: 0
Wildlife Sightings: None