Wednesday, September 8, 2010

CAVES

Man, I love caves. Not that I want to do the hardcore spelunking. I'm a bit claustrophobic. Heck, when my wife and I went with a friend to the Atlanta Aquarium, there was a section in the penguin area where you could crawl in and stand up in this glass tube in the middle of the exhibit. You could be in the midst of penguins! Well, the tunnel happened to be full of loud kids and their loud parents speaking over their kids, so it ended up being this hot, dark, enclosed space full of writhing tiny bodies and screaming. There was also a line inside the tunnel (which was about 3' tall) to get to the glass tube. Needless to say, the penguins weren't worth it.

And I'm terrified of the cave exploring that requires you squeezing your body between rocks and spending a few days in an area with no sunlight and sudden drops into the abyss. I'm perfectly okay with the guided tours in caves with the nicknames for all the stalactites and such.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1310129/British-explorers-map-cave-network-underneath-Borneo-jungle.html

Deer Cave in Borneo has been shown on one of my favorite documentaries, Planet Earth. In fact, the whole cave episode is my favorite. You have a cave full of bat dung and covered with cockroaches, one full of a river of sulfuric acid, and another that has giant gypsum crystals you can walk on.

When we visited my in-laws in Alabama, it was suggested we go see the DeSoto Caverns. I was excited about it, as it also had some fun activities you could do - like panning for minerals! I hadn't done that since I was 10! Not only that, but the caverns had a laser light show! Neato!

When we got there, we found out the laser light show was about how the creation of the cave was made. I was a little disappointed it wasn't going to be a recreation of the Tron story or something, but I wanted to check it out anyway. We get inside, and they turn off the lights. Pitch black. I start getting excited. I'm expecting the narrator to start talking about rivers of molten lava barreling through crust, and iron and oxygen mixing and blowing up or some sort of epic science like that. Instead, it was a direct reading from Genesis chapter 1. The narrator would say, "And God said, 'Let the land and waters teem with life, and give the sky the birds in the air," and behind me would be this squawking speaker that would etch out animal noises.
"Let the land -"
"CRAW! CRAW! CRAW!"
"with life and-"
"RRRROOOOOOAAAARRR!"
"water-"
"MOOOOOOOO!"

They also had toilet racers.

Yes, this is real.


It's as exciting as it looks.

1 comment:

Nikki said...

Ok, that video is hilarious. XD