Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I'll choose Places you find terrorists for $500, please Alex

Well, just when I thought I might never post again....I did something blogworthy!!  Yes!  And it was smack in the middle of the week to boot!  I might even do you dear blog friends the favor of skipping all the warm up material and getting right into the photos of my trip DOWN UNDER!!  

What?  did you think that I, the two-state traveler, actually managed Australia?  No, no, no, that kinda thing would take much more than a mental whim and a Wednesday to pull off.  (And yes Mme B. I would definitely have mentioned such a thing to you ;)

This was the sort of down under that you read about (or let's face it, see, in the movie theater) in Journey to the Center of the Earth .  Ok, nope.  I just watched the trailer and remembered that the movie had WAY more dinosaurs, special effects, and appearances by Brendan Frasier than this place did so I can't totally go there with my analogy without feeling just a wee exaggeratory (Wow, I didn't make that word up like I thought I might have).

So even though we didn't get anywhere near the center of the earth, we did go to this really fabulous cave in Eureka Springs!!!  It was such a last minute plan in our otherwise busy outing but it was one of the coolest (exactly 58 degrees year round-I listened) places I've seen in quite a while. 

I took tons of pictures of stalactites and stalagmites along the way but what I couldn't capture was the awesome old fashioned feel this whole place had.  We were each handed gigantic headphones upon entering the Onyx Cave and were instructed to line up carefully along the yellow lines at each listening station so we could hear the commentary after pushing a tall flashing button straight out of a Dharma training video from an episode of LOST (sorry if I actually lost you non LOST watchers there).  The recorded voice playing on the headphones was so dated, he actually reminded us not to leave anything but our camera "flash cubes" behind in the trash receptacles provided along the way.  Remember those?  haha.


Welcome to the 60's dear children.  It's not quite an i-pod but these things get the job done when you need to know what to do when in an underground poorly lit natural dwelling!  

Ok, that's all for now.  But, that's only because it is getting quite late and I've got a pumpkin patch requiring my presence in the morning plus a hugely busy weekend ahead.  I just wanted to share a tiny bit of our day today and hopefully I'll get to more of it in the next couple days- barring a total blog rebellion- as lately I've been prone to pulling.  

Please take care all.  I'm thinking of a special few of you tonight as you are dealing with especially difficult times in your lives.  You know who you are and if you are reading, know that I am praying for you all along the way dear friends.  Much love. 

10 comments:

dive said...

Boy howdy, Shan! You sure know how to do spectacular!
This is a wonderful post. Thank you for taking on your journey to the depths (although the older generation among your readership would have nothing to do with young Brendan Fraser; we are strict Doug Mc.Clure fans … hee hee).

Scout said...

Caves are amazing, unless they're tight spaces, and then I can't stand them. Claustrophobia, you know.

Tally said...

K, that was awesome!!! Well worth the wait! That picture of Dandy is TOO MUCH!!! I'm always a sucker for a tiny kid in glasses anyway, but knowing him just makes it all the sweeter....

Jamey Clayberg said...

One of my fave parts: the blind fish in the gift shop tank taken from the stream under the cave... no eyes at all. Pretty cool. I know this is the MAD MAD MAD MAD week (long drive to a pumpkin patch anyone?) but that Eureka was some good times.

MmeBenaut said...

Gosh, you had my heart racing there for a minute; I was expecting a knock at the door any second. Drat and double drat.
Still, looks like you and the boys had a fantastic time down there. I think that all boys love caves.
Have a great weekend Shan dear; see you next week.

dean r said...

did it bring back romantic memories of you and jamey's eureka spring visit with me and sare? ha ha. hello my friends from the Dakar airport..... in a couple hours.... a revoir senegal!

Maria said...

I've been to this cave!! I went with Bing years ago when we were just friends. I love caves and it is a testament to what a giving person she was/is because she totally goes berserk at going anywhere underground and she not only went to through this cave but also did not freak out when the tour guide shut off all the lights to show us just how dark it really was down there. (For the record, Bing DID clutch my arm...)

Koi said...

My new favorite word "exaggeratory." Thank you.

Karen said...

Hi Shan, I just wanted to stop by and thankyou for the visit to my blog and I see a few familiar faces here too. Hi Mme B and Maria.

That cave looks amazing and this was a very entertaining post.

Jenna Jean said...

This cave looks so cool!!! We went to Devils Den this weekend and the kids and fam. did all the caving while the mom in-law and myself sat happily outside and waited! This post almost makes me think that I could do that cave, maybe!!!