Awesome Caverns

The caverns were really fun! It was really narrow at first but then it got really big. We went down a spiral stair case. [I got dizzy ] We saw some faces in the rock walls and we got to turn off the lights. It was scary because I could not see anything. Our tour guide played a joke on us by telling us that if we put our thumb on our nose and wiggled our fingers you would be able to see the outline of your fingers. Then she turned on her flashlight and shined it at us. I felt silly. There was a little pond of water and it was very very very clean water. We found a frog there and Brayden took it out and saved it. The lady in the cavern said it would not live down there because there was not food for it to live. We saw people that repelled down 165 feet. I thought it was crazy! I didn’t get to dizzy on the way up the spiral stairs. I thought we would be walking into the cave and here it moaning. Instead the cave was ginormous. There was rock that had water soaked into it so much that when you pound on it it would sound like a bongo drum. My favorite formation was the Cathedral Curtains. They hang down like a sheet and the light shines right through them. I love it. It was awesome. – Gracie

Really Big Trees!

Earlier this week we visited the Calaveras Big Trees.  We took a hike along a snow and ice covered boardwalk a mile and a half to view these majestic ancient giants.  It is amazing to think how long these trees have been alive, some over 2000 years old.  The largest was about 17 feet in diameter and over 250 feet tall.  Just as fascinating as these living trees were the remains of the fallen trees

One of the big ones

which created tunnels and caverns on the forest floor.  The kids walk and climbed through many of them.  Needless to say our fingers and toes were frozen by the end of our short journey.