Marengo Cave

Today was a good day. We got to spend time with our friends, Joe and Michelle Smith, and their three children. They drove an hour and a half from their home in Owensboro, Kentucky to see us. It was so nice to see familiar faces and catch up with them.

We BBQ'd hamburgers and hot dogs and ate lunch together. We loved getting to enjoy homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert that Michelle had made. Yum! The kids were instant friends even though some of them had never met and it had been long enough that those that had met, didn't remember. :) Their daughter, Hannah, is just a little over a week older than Spencer. I can remember being pregnant at the same time as Michelle when they lived in Bend too and being jealous when I heard that Hannah had been born. (You know when you're at that ready to be done being pregnant part?) Their oldest, Josiah, is 11 and their littlest, Moriah, is 2. All the kids played well together and Michelle and I got to talk while Joe and Brock (and Brighton) visited outside. It was a pretty relaxing time.
So relaxing in fact, that it was a little hard to get up the motivation to head to Marengo Cave in the afternoon, but I'm glad we did.

We arrived at the visitor center around 4 and I was surprised how busy the parking lot and visitor center was and how nicely landscaped the grounds were. We went right up to the ticket counter and surprisingly were able to get tour tickets for a tour in only 25 minutes for all 11 of us.

We browsed around the gift store for a few minutes and used the restroom facilities until our tour time was called. We chose to do the Dripstone Trail tour. Turned out to be a private tour with just our party and a guide so it was even more fun.

The guide, Caitlyn, went on ahead into the man-made entrance to unlock a door.

We were reminded about some of the names of the cave formations. (stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, columns)

Loved this portion with still water that looked 30 feet deep, but was really only about 6 inches!
It was so clear and reflective.

Helictite formation - grows in a seemingly haphazard way.

I guess Spencer is excited that they held square dances in the cave in the past.

Cave stays at a constant 52 degrees...the average of the hottest and coldest temps of the land above.

The penny ceiling. We got to attempt to toss our pennies up to see if we could get them to stick. Some of our party should be expecting some good luck because their pennies stuck.

Hard to believe this kid turns 15 years old tomorrow!

The original cave tours would be much longer since the guides and "tourists" would have only lanterns to guide them and they didn't have the nice paths that we get to use today so they would need to get water along the journey and this is the Crystal Springs, where they would stop for a drink. These are the original cups they would use and they are now fused to the floor and very brittle.

"Cave bacon"

Flowstone column

"Great Wall of China"

The tour was over before I wanted it to be which I guess is a good thing. I think the designers of this tour did one of the best jobs of all the caves we've seen. The lighting was really well done and the formations were showcased well without drawing attention to the light source. We exited the cave through the *surprise* gift shop! The kids made very small souvenir purchases and we headed out.

The Marengo Cave logo depicts the two children, a sister and brother, who discovered the cave in 1883.

The Smith Family followed us back to the trailer and were about to just pack up and leave, but since our stomachs were growling, we figured theirs were too and we convinced them with a little arm twisting to stay and eat some frozen pizza and salad with us before they headed out. The kids enjoyed some more time together and the adults sat outside and talked and laughed until the lightning bugs came out. Shortly after that our friends headed home.

I'm so glad we got the chance to get together. It was a very fun and memorable day.