Marianna Caverns

So....we were supposed to be at Disney World this week, but I got really sick on Sunday, so we had to cancel our trip.  The good news is that Andy was still able to stay home with us, so since I have started feeling better the last few days we were able to do some fun family activities.  Today, we headed to Marianna, which is a little over an hour from Tallahassee.  It was a beautiful fall day, and we had a great time together!

When we first arrived we were told that their were a few school groups on the cavern tour so we decided to go ahead and buy our tickets and spend some time exploring.

Here is Andy with Davis.  I think this is the only time he has ever worn one of our babies in a baby carrier.

Here we are at the start of a short hike.



 

We came to a little cave that you can walk through.  We were planning on it, until we saw the bats flying around.  On our cavern tour later, our tour guide told us that the bats here are fairly small and eat mosquitoes.  She said if you aren't afraid of birds, you shouldn't be afraid of these bats.  I didn't let her know that we were scared.

After our hike we went to the playground area and had a picnic.  We had the place to ourselves.  Partly because they are an hour behind our time, so most people weren't eating their lunch at 11:00.

Davis aka "into EVERYTHING baby"

It was time for our cave tour and while we were waiting Andy was teaching the boys how to play "slap hands".



Here is the entrance to the caverns.  The guide said that at the deepest we are about 50-60 feet underground.  It always stays at a steady temperature of 65 degrees year round.

The formations were breathtaking.  The boys seemed to enjoy the tour as much as we did.

This is a picture of the original entrance to the cavern.  It was found in the 1930's after a tree was uprooted and left a hole, and a man climbed down in it to discover this.

You are not allowed to touch any formations in the cave, except for one.  (and except for the one I hit my head on)  They do this to fulfill the guests curiosity and to preserve the other formations.  The formations grow 1 centimeter every 100 years.  This is the one formation that you can touch.  It felt like a wet, cold rock, for those of you who won't make it on the tour. :)



At one point she said that everyone needed to duck, so here is Knox following directions.  I think he would have been okay standing up here.  :)

After the tour we headed to the swimming hole, which is not a swimming hole right now.  It's pretty gunked up.  So we looked at the water and then played a little soccer in the green area.



We had a lot of fun, and although we aren't at the most magical place on Earth, today for me was a magical day just being with my family.