The Homeschool Co-Op we belong to is studying Earth Science this year. The kids have been learning about mountains and rock formations. We recently went on a very fitting trip as a group to Skyline Caverns.
Our leader negotiated an unbelieveable price to attend at four dollars per person. The Caverns folks were happy to offer it as our group brought 53 people on a Monday morning! That was a win-win situation. Equally fun was that fact that after a month of dry weather, we had heavy rains begin early that morning which would in fact last for over a week. That was no trouble because our Field trip was to take place undergroud and the rain was a non-issue!
This picture taken with the camera pointed straight up is where the caverns begin. This ledge is where the first person to find them, deduced from seeing a sink hole over limestone next to it, that he should start digging in 1937.
The first gathering place we stopped at as you go into the caverns contains this fireplace which has a natural flue in it. They used to build fires in this to warm guests as they began the tours. The entire caverns maintains the temperature of 54 degrees year round. We were dressed for that and were very comfortable.
Some lights were used to accent different rock formations but I found this Caverns to be more natural than some of the others I have seen. We are very blessed to live in an area that has an abundance of this very interesting phenomena open to the public.
Our Tour Guide was a wonderful young woman who instructed us about that types of rock formations we were seeing and answered our questions.
Since it was really raining, we asked about the possibility of flooding. She explained that only a few times, during some of the larger hurricanes we have had, has flooding been a problem. Apparently, during the earthquake we experienced two years ago, tourist groups were down in the caverns and didn't even know that there had been an earthquake! They didn't feel a thing! That is good because some of the passage ways we traveled along our 1 mile figure 8 tour were quite narrow. The formation above they described as "The Eagle", the wings and tail can be imagined.
Our Tour Guide turned out the lights, after warning the kids, to show us what "Cave Blackness" is. That is the absence of any light at all and you cannot see your hand right in front of your eyes. She explained that scientists believe that after one week of cave blackness, an individual would go blind ( from the eyes continually searching for light), after two weeks one would go crazy and after three weeks, that person would become a tour guide for Skyline Caverns!
These Anthodites ( rock flowers) were discovered and named in this cave. They are found in only a handful of places in the world. They were discovered in a part of the cavern in which deep thick mud had formed an airtight vacuum.
This was a terrific Field Trip. It made no difference that instead of the planned picnic, we ate our lunch in the car as we drove home in the pouring down rain.
