My brother and family left for home, my sister for Scotland, but we stayed in the area for a couple more adventures, specifically, the Ape Caves!
These caves were formed about 2000 years ago, as a lava flow cooled and hardened on outside, while lava still flowed in the center.
We carefully turned out our lights at one point to show the kids just how important they were. It was DARK, and 0.2 seconds after we turned them off, a jumpy Calista switched hers back on again. That's why we have them!
At the very end of the lava tube, there is a portion you can crawl through on your stomach if you want.
We did slither on our stomachs, and Juice the Alligator came, too.
There was a trail I was considering doing, but looking at the trail conditions online while preparing indicated there had been a slide last year and the road was closed. Just before our trip, that status updated to being open with restrictions. I didn't know what that meant, so we decided to drive and see if we could do it.
This is the road to the trail. That is a stream of water over the road. We decided not to risk it, had lunch in a little pullout on the side of the road, and went on to our next stop.
Which was the Trail of Two Forests. The first forest is the one growing around us.
The second is the holes and impressions that remain for the forest 2000 years ago.
And we could climb down and around in a couple of the tree trunks!
This is the view looking towards Calista, down a tree trunk.
You can even see the impression of the bark in the lava tube!
This little spelunking adventure was short and fun.
I think the boys did it about 4 times each.
Our spelunking adventure was pretty awesome. I think the kids would all love to do it again - maybe even the more difficult Ape Caves trail. If we did that, we'd probably want head lamps for everyone: gotta keep our hands free to scramble and climb!
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