A friend of mine has invited me to go caving several times, but each time I either didn't have the time to prepare, or something important came up.  But a few weeks ago, he called me and invited me again, with almost three weeks notice.  So I bought the appropriate gear, and I went caving on Saturday.

It was A LOT of fun.  I went with for other people, Joe (experienced), Jason (experienced), Becky (experienced), and Dara (first timer, like myself).  We had to get so much stuff, which I thought was excessive until I realized how useful it all was in the cave.  It wasn't what I expected almost at all.  A few years ago we had gone to Ruby Falls, were you can go down into a cave.  There is a neat little elevator, and when you get down there, there is a walk way with lights.  They have some really neat formations, and they lead you down to an underground water fall.

I knew this experience would not be the exact same, but I thought perhaps something similar.  I was wrong.  There was no elevator, no lights, and absolutely NO walkway.  There was only LOTS of rocks.  There were some neat formations, but my light was not bright enough to let me appreciate everything.  There were bats, that was interesting.  There was even human feces...

Have you ever been to a river with big rocks/giant boulders in the middle, that you climb on a jump over?  That was one of my first challenges, the only difference being there was no river beneath us, only a 6 foot drop to some sharp rocks.  Next was crawling.  Not hands and knees crawling, but army guy stomach crawling. I did not realize this at first and definitely stabbed my butt on a stalactite.  There was scaling the side of a relative cliff, rock climbing steep walls, belly crawling through a river, mud 3 inches deep.  There were even a few parts I could not do at all, and one of the guys would have to carry me down, or lift me straight up through a hole.

It was dark, dirty, cold, wet, and extremely muddy.  But I had an AWESOME time.  Honestly I did get really beat up tho.  I have some pretty nasty bruises, a few scratches, and of course my muscles are SO SOAR.  But the most I think about it, I actually cant wait to go back, and do it again, and get stronger.  

My only real complaint would be that we were in there for 6 hours.  We got in at 4 and out at 10:10.  I was EXHAUSTED.  If it had been about an hour shorter I would have really loved it.  By the time we decided it was time to get out, I was already so tired.  My body was shaking and I had so little strength left in my arms and legs.  The only reason I was able to continue was the thought that I had to get out of the cave (obviously, duh! I couldn't stay)  

Overall it was a very long and tiring endeavor, but it was so much fun, and a great way to get an awesome full body work out.  I definitely want to take people to do it.  And now, I must go and rest my weary body.  If you want too see pictures of it go here...
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pictures of my injuries will be posted on facebook.

love you guys
da Bunni*