Upon arrival, it soon became obvious that we may not have been the only ones with the idea of finding natural air conditioning as the parking lot was almost full. After parking, one heads to the main building where we stood in line for a while to buy our tickets. There were lines everywhere and it had a "DisneyWorld" feel to the place with all the lines and many foreign tourists. While waiting in line, we did get to listen to a performer set up out front. He was very talented playing a guitar, with a flute-like instrument around his neck, and small cymbals on his feet. The crowd enjoyed his soothing, classical music.
After getting our tickets, the boys wanted to first try out the rope adventure park they have there. Basically, you are harnessed and tethered to an overhead safety cable and then climb your way across ropes and suspended bridges of all sorts.
The boys enjoyed the activity and it reminded me of a C. M. Escher print. Next to the ropes adventure park, they also have a garden maze that looked pretty fun, except when it was 104 degrees.
The boys were good and hot now, so we headed over to the line to enter the caverns. The line moved pretty quickly and before long, we were entering the bowels of the earth in a steady stream of people. When you get large crowds of people, there are always those you wonder what happened to their brains. The couple in front of us with four small children were complaining trying to manage their very large stroller down the stairs into the caverns. The man remarked "it didn't say strollers weren't allowed." No, idiot, the world doesn't revolve around you and offspring. Had you used your brain, you would have realized that you were going under the ground into caves carved by long ago rivers and the effects of underground water and it might not be stroller accessible. For his next move, he got out his iphone but quickly put it away as he realized there was no service in a cave.
The caverns are a comfortable 55 degrees year round and it was very comfortable walking the 1.5 miles through the caverns. The caverns are very beautiful, but the large numbers of people walking through and touching the formations, though told not to several times, has taken its toll. These caverns are no longer a living thing and are no longer creating those wonderful formation. These caverns are dead and have that dead feel to them. Other caverns in our area, such as Grand Caverns and Shenandoah Caverns, see far fewer people and the landscapes are still changing. Because of the large numbers of people, they also do not give a guided tour to small groups at a time, but rather you walk through at your own pace and there are employees posted at a few places to tell you about some of the features, but you generally cannot hear them because of all the talking people and crying children. So you walk through and admire God's handiwork, but know literally nothing about what you are seeing.
Still, it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on an extremely hot summer afternoon and should you get a chance, stop and visit any caverns to marvel at the other-world beauty of our earth.
