Just caving around

I really just wanted to head to the Shenandoah Valley skyline drive yesterday but it started to rain. What fun would it be to be in the mountains if you couldn't see the magnificent view. So we decided to head to Skyline Caverns. Skyline is one of the youngest caverns in the United States. I could really tell because of the beauty that comes from older caves. More stalamites and stalagtite formations. Despite the smaller formations, they have formations not found in many places. They are called anthodites. They are extremely rare cave formations that form in limestone caves such as Skyline Caverns. Anthodites are named after it's Greek origin which means "flower-like" because of the thin crystal like segments growing from the base and they resemble stone flowers. Anthodites are extemely fragile and in places were they are publicly displayed, nets are placed to protect these rare formations. They had shown the four phases of this crystal and it was beautiful. I couldn't believe how sparkling it was. It is said that a vaccum has to be present to make these. They take an incredibly long time to grow too.

At first Faith was scared of the cave. I don't know, maybe it was the fact that we have been reading Going on a Bear Hunt. She thought she might see a bear. The guide turned off the lights as we went through an area to help stop the moss from growing due to the light. That scared her too. But as we ventured in she became more comfortable and eventually led the way in front of us. We saw a stream that was stocked with trout. I learned that if the trout are not given light they will eventually go blind. We even experienced complete darkness when the guide turned off the lights in the anthodite room. It was darkest I've ever seen.