Spelunking

Yesterday, Ryan and I took a little road trip and were spelunkers for the day down to Harmony! In the Southwestern part of Minnesota, there are several caves which have been carved through the limestone as rivers rushed through. We went to Niagara Cave, which is supposed to be the biggest and coolest cave to explore {there is also the Mystery Cave State Park in Forrestville down there}. It was such a pretty drive to Harmony - lots of rolling hills, a drive through a massive wind farm, and the "Amish Byway" which didn't disappoint as we saw a few horse-drawn covered-buggies truckin down the side of the road! When we arrived at Niagara Cave, it looked, well, completely normal. It was basically in the middle of farm land. Who would have thought that there was this big beautiful cave below!

We paid the admission fee and then I had to pay for a sweatshirt. Yes, I got suckered in purchasing a souvenir sweatshirt since I didn't bring a jacket and the cave is 48 degrees. Luckily, Ryan brought his jacket so we didn't have to purchase two! The tour was a mile long - a half mile into the cave and a half mile back out. It was SO cool! I would recommend this tour to anyone. The cave is actually pretty big and it has a 70 foot waterfall inside!!! SO COOL!!! Check out the pictures below and then I'll tell you a funny story :-) Oh, forgot to mention, there is even a little chapel down in the cave :)

Lots and lots of steps into the cave.

More steps down to the waterfall.

There is still a river running through the cave.

The watefall - up close and personal! We had to walk out on this little bridge to see the waterfall and it made my stomach kind of queasy! {This picture was taken with no flash to give it the cool effect.}

This is the waterfall as taken with flash.

This picture is taken looking straight up to the top of the cave.

Note the lovely sweatshirt!

It's alive! {That slimy looking stuff is growing, but you can't touch it or the oils from our skin will cause it to die.}

I can't help but say "superstar!" when looking at this picture :)

More slimy-looking stuff on the cave wall.

These little stalactites are 80 years old. Very slow growing!

More growing slime :)

A very narrow and talk part of the cave.

They call this the skeleton arm and hand. Can you see the two arm bones and then the finger bones?

This is called the "wedding cake" {to go along with the wedding theme with the capel and all}. You can't see the bottom tier but you can see the top two.

One of a couple different fossils.

Stalactites.

Even bigger stalactites!

An enormous stalactite!

The big stalactite was at the end of the cave. When we got here they turned all the lights off and it was dark! Like dark, dark, dark. Like can't-even-see-your-hand-even-though-it's-one-milimeter-in-front-of-your-face dark! They kept the lights off for quite a long time, and then I got nervous that bats were going to start flying around. Someone then asked the tour guide to turn the lights back on. (ha - they must have been thinking something similar as me!}

And now to the funny story. Once we started heading back to the surface, Ryan and I were in the back of the group with the tour guide. There was a group of four people in front of us - two mid-aged couples. Anyways, the last part of getting out of the cave is climbing back up all the stairs which we first came down. We went up the first flight and one of the couples in front of us sat and took a break. The other couple from their group continued on up. {Ryan and I are now in the middle of these two couples.} Well the couple in front didn't know their friends had stopped to rest {and hence, didn't know Ryan and I were right behind them} and the wife of the couple, she started asking her husband to give her a push up the stairs. {hehehe, snicker, snicker - I can't even write this without laughing!} So he's pushing her, giving her a little help up the steep steps, and then she tells her husband "Hun, can you move down, like underneath my butt more and push." {hehehehehe} The husband then replies "No, I can't. Wife: "Just move your hands down underneath my butt and push." {hehehehe} Husband: "I can't. You're too high up." Wife: "Put your hands on my butt and push!" {LOL, hehehehehe, LOL}. Then we got to a break in the stairs, they turned around, saw Ryan and me and told us we could go ahead of them. So Ryan and I continued up the stairs and by the time we reached the top, our legs were burning! {There were so many steps!!} I didn't really laugh out loud when hearing the conversation between the husband and wife, I was just laughing inside. I thought it was kind of cute - something I'd ask Ryan to do - hehe! Maybe this isn't a funny story to any of you reading this, but it might be one of those had-to-be-there moments because I'm still laughing!

And that about sums up our day at Niagara Cave!

~Ashley