Day 4

Thursday we drove a little ways up the road into Cache National Forrest to find the home of the Minnetonka Cave. It was way at the top of a mountain. We had a good time walking through the tour of the cave and climbing the total of 888 stairs round trip. We definitely were not wanting for exercise on this trip. It was 40 degrees in the cave, but once you got climbing all the stairs it actually felt really nice. Katelyn seemed to enjoy herself as well. There was another little two year old girl on our tour and she kept making noise and every time she would say something, Kate would say "shhh". It was kind of funny the back and forth thing they had going on. Gotta love our bossy little one.

The second picture is of a little ground squirrel up at the waiting area of the cave. There were tons of these little things running around and they would come right up to you and eat out of your hand. I wished I had something that I could have offered to feed it because I thought they were so cute.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like the cave or not. I was worried that I might feel claustrophobic, but there was actually plenty of space all around and it was well lit inside. We even saw a bat (see pic below) which actually looked kind of cute all snuggled up in its cubby hole. I'm sure I would have though otherwise had it decided to fly out of there.

There was only one rock that we were permitted to touch. If you touch the rocks (the growing stalagmites/stalactites) the oil from your hands with stop its growth. So there was one rock on the way out that we were able to touch. It was really, really smooth.