This post concerns my post-convention activities, which consist mainly of touring commercial caves.
( please omit last paragraph of previous report # 12 ) Continued from report #13: The campground had emptied out. I left my tent pitched at the campground and drove south. My first stop was the commercial cave Wyandotte, where I took the 90 minute tour. This is an awesome cave tour and was worth the trip to Indiana. One of the things that bugs me about some commercial cave tours is the tour guides often just read a script and don't really know anything about caves and in some cases it was the only job they could find. However, our tour guide enthusiastically loved caves. Also, she had a big smile and had done some real caving in the local area. I am terrible with names these days, but I think she said it was Casey. We need more cavers like her, and especially down here. Wyandotte Cave is a long cave with several big rooms. The tour only covers a small portion of the cave. They offer several wild cave tours with lots of crawling that lead to other huge rooms in the cave. I was impressed with Wyandotte Cave. It had good air-flow and I thought it was the coldest of the 12 Indiana caves that I visited. I would like to see more of this cave someday. I believe several cavers went on long trips during the convention into this cave. Are any of you out there? [ I wished I could have toured the show caves on a week day when it was less crowded ] Then I walked a trail near O'Bannion State Park where I thought I might find Langdon's Cave. It was a nice trail with very pleasant weather, but I never found anything resembling rock or karst. [ In hindsight, I should have got better directions to the cave. ] I did finally get into the poison-ivy which I am now regretting. I checked out the swimming hole at the Stagestop :Picnic Area, which was supposed to be the best swimming hole in the area. I found no great swimming holes in or around the Hoosier National Forest, but that was the only place I would have got in the water. I reported earlier that a lot of cavers left the convention early. But I was mistaken. Many left to go caving. There were caving vehicles all along the roads in the Wyandotte area. I left there and drove directly to "Squire Boone Caverns." I enjoyed this cave. I especially had fun there touring the mill and watching the guide operate the mill, as I have never seen the inner workings of a mill. I still had some daylight so the closest thing I could find to do was drive across the Ohio River into Kentucky and tour the town of Brandenburg where I found a restaurant called "Dave's on the River." I walked along a trail called "Buttermilk Falls," and checked out what looked like a cave were the springs are coming out of the cliff. Surely the springs are part of a cave somehow, right? I watched the sun set over the huge bridge there at the Ohio River, from a nice city park there along the river. I returned to camp late Saturday night unsure if I would be camping alone, or even if I would be able to camp. Fortunately, there were still a few cavers sitting around the camp-fire. Mark Minton was there, and a guy named "Bear." The weather was incredible - the best of the convention. Sunday morning, I left the convention site for good after saying goodbye to the few remaining volunteers who were slaving away to de-rig the convention. ( I mis-reported that I packed up and left on Saturday in # 12 ) Sunday after lunch, I took both tours of "Marengo Cave." This completed my qualifications to be a member of the "Subterreanean Club." I was awarded a beautiful blue patch. I will proudly display this patch on my speleo-jacket. 3 things impressed me with Marengo Cave. When you are on the end of the Dripstone tour and they turn off the lights you can see straight down the passage to the Candlelight Room, if a tour is taking place there, you can see them nearly 600 feet away. That is the longest I have ever looked down a passage before. No. 2 is that if you look into Mirror Lake at just the right angle and let your eyes relax, it truely does look like there is a passage in a pit instead of a lake. And No. 3, I think it was the best gift shop out of all the commerical caves that I have visited, ( approximately 25 commercial caves. ) 2B continued ... David Locklear --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
