I've been on a few of these class trips lately, but this is the first time we rode at the back of the bus. I had completely forgot that that was where you got the worst ride... it was over an hour of bouncing down mostly country roads and was cursing myself the whole way for not bringing my noise cancelling headphones to reduce the screams for the trip.
My crew
Luckily I was assigned to watch over four very nice girls, all friends with Meghan and all kids that I already knew - so that made the day easier...
The history
We got off the bus, and were welcomed by the owner (was a bit surprised that it wasn't crown land) of the land and caves, Chris Hinsperger. He gave us a nice little speach about how the caves were found, marked by a map maker in 1853 by noting 'subterranian channels', and then told us a little about the founder - Tom Woodward. This guy must have been nuts - cuz most of the caves that we were able to explore were completely underwater when he started exploring. He eventually bought the land and blocked off some of the river entrances with concrete, and pumped out most of the rest of the water - and made it a tourist attraction!
Fossils
At the beginning of the tour we were told about the land that we were on, and that it was one of the richest fossil deposits of the Ordovician period (about 400 to 500 million years ago). These were little invertebrates and plant life that should have only been able to survive in tropical climates - says something about the continental drifts doesn't it!
They had a number of fossils to pass around that had been found on site, pretty interesting little presentation, and the kids actually listened...
The Caves
So following that, we got to go in the caves - we were the first of three groups - was glad that we weren't the last!
The caves themselves were nowhere near as big as the Luray Caverns down in Virginia, and since the caves had been pretty much filled with water up until about 50 years ago - there wasn't much in the way of stalagtites or stalagmites. This was pretty much the biggest in there...
But it was quite interesting in the way some of the caves had been formed by having rushing waters flow through them for hundreds of millions of years.
You can even see how the different water levels created layers in the rock - it was like a big wall of razor blades.
There were a few smaller caves off the main path, that the kids (and some of the more adventurous volunteers) were able to explore.
There was something like an overall 50m drop from surface to the bottom of the caves, and a temp drop from 24c or so outside, to 10c inside! And since it had rained quite a bit lately, the kids were constantly getting dripped on - so cold and wet, I think they were ok to see the other end of the tunnel and get back out to the nice sunny day.
We had to wait for the rest to finish their tours, so had plenty of time to explore - although they warned us against going off the beaten path - poison ivy. I thought they were just trying to scare the kids into staying put - but I could see plenty of it lying around! The kids got to check out the store and shovel in mounds of sugar that they were able to buy there. The owner Chris said he wouldn't let anyone buy anything until they were done their tour - I think it was a clever way to keep kids relatively calm until being done with going down into the caves ;-)
The river that flows by is really nice, and had this old broken bridge - had to take the shot.
I wasn't looking forward to the ride home, but figured I could maybe sneak in a few minutes nap... Even with all the kids yelling and screaming - literally all around me - I put my knees up, head to the wall, and napped the entire way back! Now that's a good school trip.
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