Maquoketa Caves!

Today we went to the Maquoketa Caves in Iowa.

Its a State Park, and you don't have a tour guide!

Drena and Reid went with us!

They had been there a long time ago, and we'd been wanting to go

do something together before school started.

Plus, when we were on vacation, somebody told us we should check

the caves out and we never got to it so we decided that

today was the day!

We got there about 10:15.
Mom and Drena didn't go in very far because claustrophobia
set in quickly... :P

It was so cool!

(as in awesome and temperature too)!

It felt air conditioned down there!

There were a lot of really small caves, but one of them,

the Dancehall cave was huge! And it had passages in the walls

that you could go back pretty far in!

Of course Criky found some spots for us to pose ;)

Its amazing how small one feels when surrounded by huge

rocks (or underground...)

And then there were pathways between the different caves.

It was so pretty!

I may have found my 'Prince Charming' today!

But, alas, I couldn't work up the courage to kiss him so I guess

we'll never know will we? :P

It was sooo neat when you'd get to the end of a cave and see

all the light and green above you.

Hey, Crystal got in a picture!

She's the little blob on the rock on the left...

Lunch break!

By then we were SO muddy...

There was a big passage that we went into. Crystal waited outside,

we told her it'd probably only take us 10 minutes and well, it was

a lot bigger than we thought and took at least 30. Oops!
That was the neatest thing I've done in a LONG time though!

We had 2 small flashlights, had to crawl or slide on our stomachs

most of the time, and although it was hard work, it was wonderful!

Oh, and I had a bat fly about 6 inches over my head! AAhhhh!

We got REALLY dirty, like you can't see our pants because

they're covered in clay/mud dirty!

And well, the lower part of our legs are really bruised up,

but it was totally worth it!

Aaaahhhhh (contented sigh).