Freeday Friday: Speleology and Caving

  

  When I was young, I always had a fascination with caves.  In fact, every time I visited Inner Space Caverns, my family and I would talk about how someday I would probably have a job there.  The interest never left me and I even visited Longhorn Caverns when I was five months pregnant. Well, on Monday the 9th, I was invited to go to a private cave called Whirlpool Cavern.  Now this was not what most people are used to...The paved pathways, the lighted rock formations, the teen-aged tour guide.  This was a locked up cave, in which limited people could access.  There was no elevator to bring us down into the cavernous entrance room.  No, we had to climb into a hole in the ground and gingerly step onto an everyday ladder.  The entrance was the largest room in the cave and it was no bigger than my living room and standing was out of the question.  In fact, the only time I was upright was when I was climbing upward through the narrow, winding passageway.  For a majority of the trek, I was on hands and knees and there were more than just a couple of instances in which I had wriggle and squirm on my belly to get through.  I loved  every bit of it.  It actually made me feel like a kid again.  And think I almost never made it down.  All the talk about closed in, claustrophobic, tight places gave me panic attacks.  I just knew that I would freak out in the cave and be completely trapped.  Standing outside the trapdoor entrance, my mind was going wild and I took every bit of courage I had to get me on that ladder.  I was so surprised to find myself completely relaxed once I finally made into the cave and only took a few moments for me to realize that, not only was I not scared, but I was having the time of my life!  At the end of the hour and a half trip, I wanted more.  The person leading our group told me to look into the Underground Texas (UT) Grotto.  So I went and checked it out on Wednesday night.  Although, I was a little bit lonely, I had a great time.  I learned about other caving opportunities and the speaker for this particular meeting had just come back from caving in Iran.  So, this definitely something that I'm going to get into, and fortunately, all of the Grotto meeting are when the kids or in bed and most of the caving opportunities are on the weekend or at night.  Now all I have to do is find someone to go with me, so I won't be so lonely.  Anybody else interested in caving?