More Spelunking

After Hailee headed to her dad's place we were able to do a few more adult things, like going to the caverns! If you remember Dominic and I have been to several caverns here in the Central valley and had a great time. Poor Dominic had to go to work and wasn't able to tag along, but Cindy, John and I had a great time and actually did TWO caverns in one day. This is definitely the way to go since they are a fair drive from Modesto but there are 3 caverns within a 30min drive of each other. You are able to get big bang for your travel buck/time because each cave is so different.

First, we went to Moaning Cavern, so named for the moaning sound that errupts from the cave enterance during the rainy season. This sound happens when the rain hits the hollow formations at the bottom of the cave.

Cindy and John are flanking the visual of the cave, which goes VERY deep (something over 300ft down)

To get into this cave you have to walk down a very narrow bunch of stairs with a very short ceiling height...Doesn't Cin seem to be enjoying herself?If you thought that was tough, you now have to tackle the spiral staircase. John didn't really enjoy this part too much and I must say there is a trigger that goes off in your body telling you DON'T GO! Eventually he made it and ended up in the enormous cavern. believe it or not you can fit the statue of libery in here.Here is one of the large formations in that space. There isn't much to this cavern once you get in there unless you take the adventure tour which I would love to do sometime...maybe when dad comes down next??

I don't have any after shots of us but let me tell you we were exhausted. At least one of us thought we were dying and we all needed water. After grabbing some lunch we arrived at California Caverns. This cavern is more horizontal rather than vertical so it involved few stairs and much more walking. Here's the map of this cavern:This is one old caveHere's a closer look at all the rooms we traveled through (follow the red line) DANGER! you must wear hard hats to protect your noggin here!

We're all suited up and ready for some air conditioning! It's naturally 59 degrees in here year round. The gold rush settlers actually held town meetings, parties, weddings and just about everything else here...check out that old school tag! (1861 is the year under the name)
Enjoying that AC

Here are some stalagmites

This set is from inside the Jungle room which wasn't found until the 60's. The explorer actually had to climb through a 9 inch fracture in the rock to get into the room. It was in pristine condition and to protect the formations from the soot, ash, and body oil that the rest of the formations endured he sealed the opening back up and it wasn't rediscovered until the 80's! The formations are SO MUCH MORE white in this room and the straws (that's the long formations from the ceiling) are untouched and amazing. You can see many everyday items in the formations...check some out below.
Do you see the seahorse?This is an upside down picture of the ceiling...doesn't it look like a town?
I would highly recommend getting to at least one of these 2 caves...California certainly has more to see with less physical effort! Stay tooned for the rest of our time with Cindy and John!