We headed for the Wind Cave National Park because of the heavy rain today (Monday, July 27). They took us down several hundred feet to explore the labyrinthine chambers and passageways, and I felt my old claustrophobia rearing its ugly head as we ducked and shimmied through tight, dimly lit spaces. Native peoples still revere the cave system (the largest in the world - 135 miles of passageways mapped of an estimated 1300 miles!) and refuse to enter Wind Cave. I'm with them, even though I recovered my nerve sufficiently to enjoy the hour-long tour (we walked only half a mile, but climbed and descended over 9 stories).
In the mid-1850's two brothers discovered the cave while hunting, and began taking people from nearby Hot Springs on tours that began by squeezing through an entry hole smaller than a manhole. Our guide gave us an idea of what they experienced by dousing all of the lights except a candle. Then she blew that out! The inky blackness and profound silence made it hard to breathe, and our perky guide told us that our eyes would never adjust to this kind of darkness (in which, she quipped, all caves looked alike). We were thankful that she turned the lights back on before leading us back to the elevator shaft that took us back to the land of the living (nothing could live in the cave).
The regular cave tour was $9. For $27, you could gear up and take a cave tour that required crawling through tight little tunnels in the dark. They'd have to pay me to do that tour - they'd probably have to shoot me to do it.
When we emerged from the cave, it was raining like crazy. We waited it out in the gift shop and ate a picnic lunch in the van before driving to Hot Springs for a DQ stop. Then we went to the Mammoth Site, a 26,000 year old sink hole where they have found the remains of at least 58 mammoths that got trapped when they tried to drink water and couldn't climb back out. They were all adolescent males that had been driven from their matriarchal herds and didn't have much of a clue, according to the guide.
The original sink hole filled with calcified material that was much harder than the surrounding limestone, so that over time, the limestone eroded away and the sink hole became the crown of a hill. Excavators in bulldozers clearing land for a housing development accidentally uncovered the mammoth bones, which were identified by experts from a local college, and they built a building over the dig site, where they train youth and older adults to carefully expose more of the bones - although they don't typically remove them.
We enjoyed the tour and some of the displays before browsing - but not buying - in the gift shop and heading for home (via the Safeway for supper supplies). The rain had washed a bunch of mud onto the mat, but that cleaned up easily enough and nothing else got wet. Vicki cooked another wonderful meal and we finished the evening playing Cranium with Jim and David. This time, Jim, Vicki and Joy took the prize.
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