As in caving! Spelunking! Playin' in da mud in da dark!
(Side note: I can't seem to find the color version of this picture anymore! It always cracks me up though, since I'd taken off my gloves to take a picture, and then they took a picture of me too - as a result, you see my nail polish reflecting in the flash. "Here I am, in a tiny crawl, all muddy, but look at my shiny nails!" Hehehee!)
There's a bunch of cavers in my family. My sister (in the picture above) started in a GS caving program back in middle school, and I soon followed her while I was in high school. And we were hooked. Kept with the program while we were in college, graduating from being girls in the program to being junior staff, all the way up to being full-fledged adults! Leading groups and everything! :) Mom later noticed how much fun we were having in the program, and asked us if she could join too (didn't want to steal our 'weekends away from Mom' if we didn't want her too!). We said we'd share the fun, so she's been coming regularly too.
In college, we helped start up a Grotto near campus. There were grottoes in Richmond and in Virginia Beach (well, Tidewater) but our school was at least an hour's drive from either of them, and making a meeting on a Thursday night with 2+ hours driving was hard for a college kid. So we got with some friends in the Williamsburg/Gloucester area and started up one of our own!
The cavin' fun hasn't died out now that I'm married, either ('course it helps that I married a caver!). Actually met my husband at a regional NSS caving event (a Spring VAR). Started talking then, and 3 1/2 years later, still together :)
Truth be told, there's just something about being underground that gets into your blood. It's just so much fun! There's a great physical challenge aspect to it - "can I climb that rock? can I fit my body through that tiny hole?" It's really a rush, sometimes, realizing what you can push your body to do!
But there's so much beauty underground too. Water moving minerals around underground can create some absolutely beautiful sculptures! Speleotherms (cave formations) are so much more that stalagtites and stalagmites - there are soda straws that are so delicate you can see through them, or look as delicate as spun sugar. Modern art's got nothing on Mother Nature! And the passages themselves can have such variety - tunnels so tiny you can't turn your head, or ones where you're shining your light and can't even see the ceiling it's so high up.
And finally, cavers are some of the best, craziest, most fun people you'll meet! It's a real bonding experience, like good hiking trips or rock climbing. I guess it comes from trusting your safety to these people. This is a group of them at my wedding (see? we DO clean up!) What can I say - they're family!
There's a bunch of cavers in my family. My sister (in the picture above) started in a GS caving program back in middle school, and I soon followed her while I was in high school. And we were hooked. Kept with the program while we were in college, graduating from being girls in the program to being junior staff, all the way up to being full-fledged adults! Leading groups and everything! :) Mom later noticed how much fun we were having in the program, and asked us if she could join too (didn't want to steal our 'weekends away from Mom' if we didn't want her too!). We said we'd share the fun, so she's been coming regularly too.
In college, we helped start up a Grotto near campus. There were grottoes in Richmond and in Virginia Beach (well, Tidewater) but our school was at least an hour's drive from either of them, and making a meeting on a Thursday night with 2+ hours driving was hard for a college kid. So we got with some friends in the Williamsburg/Gloucester area and started up one of our own!
The cavin' fun hasn't died out now that I'm married, either ('course it helps that I married a caver!). Actually met my husband at a regional NSS caving event (a Spring VAR). Started talking then, and 3 1/2 years later, still together :)
Truth be told, there's just something about being underground that gets into your blood. It's just so much fun! There's a great physical challenge aspect to it - "can I climb that rock? can I fit my body through that tiny hole?" It's really a rush, sometimes, realizing what you can push your body to do!
But there's so much beauty underground too. Water moving minerals around underground can create some absolutely beautiful sculptures! Speleotherms (cave formations) are so much more that stalagtites and stalagmites - there are soda straws that are so delicate you can see through them, or look as delicate as spun sugar. Modern art's got nothing on Mother Nature! And the passages themselves can have such variety - tunnels so tiny you can't turn your head, or ones where you're shining your light and can't even see the ceiling it's so high up.
And finally, cavers are some of the best, craziest, most fun people you'll meet! It's a real bonding experience, like good hiking trips or rock climbing. I guess it comes from trusting your safety to these people. This is a group of them at my wedding (see? we DO clean up!) What can I say - they're family!
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