Cool Cave on a Hot Day
Trip Start
Jul 17, 2011
1
2
14
Trip End
Jul 31, 2011
What I did
cavern tour!
Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, Montana
Monday, July 18, 2011
Distance Travelled: almost 4 hours
Wildlife Sightings: lots of deer; a moose in a creek, pelicans,
Road Kill: porqupine, raccoon, bird
Temperature: 35 C
Type of campsite: pull thru; electric only
We left just after 8 am this morning and breakfasted in the truck. The drive was Montana beautiful the whole way…. mountains, flowing rivers, treed foothills. It was perfect territory for a rousing game of "zip, zip, schlopsky"—the game where you get a point for spotting a horse first (zip), and 20 points for a white horse (schlopsky); twice we came across a grave yard, so had to “bury all of our horses”. In the end, Dad was victorious.
It was VERY hot again today, so when we arrived early at our campsite, we were very happy to be able to upgrade to a power site – when we had previously booked there were none available. The fridge / freezer will appreciate the power tonight. As we sit in the setting sun playing scrabble in the shady breezy, it is cooling down nicely. It even cooled down enough to have a fire tonight, and our 4 pieces of firewood for $5 held out long enough to roast some marshmallows. As it got darker, the wind died down and the mosquitoes came out enough to chase us indoors to get ready for bed.
The highlight of our day was our tour of Lewis and Clark Caverns. It was about a 3 mile drive up the mountain from campground. From the interpretive center where we bought our tour tickets, we walked ¾ mile up the mountain to the cave entrance…it was very hot in the afternoon sun. Luckily the cave was beautifully cool, at about 50 degrees F. It wasn't long before we all had our sweaters on. For almost 1 ½ hours, we walked down stone step, and squeezed thru passage-ways while learning about beautiful cave formations. The kids loved the challenging terrain and even 6’6” Dad hardly bumped his head at all in the sometimes tight spaces.
Ki’s thoughts: The mountains are beautiful to drive thru. The cave tour was awesome. I liked all the different formations of rocks and all the different names for them.
Ke’s thoughts: I really, really enjoyed the cave because I liked how we walked down and down and down. The deeper we got, the more beautiful it was.
Q’s thoughts: I enjoyed my first cave tour ever.
Comments
That cave sounds awesome! We're glad you found shade. We're going to have to try playing zip zip schl.....? on our next drive.
Looks like your having lots of fun once again. I need more pictures or else I'm a big dummy and can't find them in the blog this year. Enjoy the rest of your trip looking forward to reading about your adventures. Safe travels:-)