Jumping, Dancing & Jamming Our Way Through Walt Disney World! I'm With the Band Now!

[aprilisis]

I love the cavern photos!!! I would love to do a tour like that, but I don't know about those stairs or handrails. I'm such a chicken!
I feel your pain about the lateness issue. I'm always early & John is always late. He has no concept of time whatsoever.

 

[EpcotIsMyFave]

Great TR so far! I love your mini trip reports, you make me feel like I was there with your family!!!

The pics of Lacy and and Jesse are so great, they really show their personalities. They made out well at the shower too - at one of our wedding showers we received a big ol' pile of yellow towels and my mom kept saying she was going to steal them because they were so fluffy. Hmm, maybe she did because 10 years later I only have a few left!

I have been to the Tuckaleechee Caverns (many, many years ago) and I remember thinking the same thing about those stairs and lack of handrails (I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise though, it IS a cave!!) . It's funny how the entrance to the cave is just a hole in the floor of the giftshop!

Anyway, keep up the good work, I can't wait to hear about Gaitlinburg and more Disney!!!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Sounds like Lacey had a great shower! What a blessing!

The cave tour looks like fun. I haven't been to a cave in years. There was one close to my grandparent's when I was a little girl and I remember going with them and with my cousins in the summer.

 

[reelmom]

Love the pictures of the caverns. We are going to Raccoon Mountain near Chattanooga in October. We are staying in a cabin and going into the caves they have there. We are also going to Ruby Falls since it is close by. I haven't been there in probably 25 years and DH has decided the boys need to see stuff like that. I am ok with going but we usually go on a quick Disney trip in October so I don't think it is a fair trade.

 

[MEK]

We stopped in a cave near Natural Bridge Virginia last summer. I did the exact same thing - everyone had sweat shirts but Us! Just shivered my way through the whole tour. Next time I will be more prepared!

There's a back way to Gaitlinburg???????? I wish I had know it last year when it took us an hour to drive the 10 miles to get there!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Wow the cave looks awesome...but difficult to walk in! I definitely would have been freaked out over the bats the size of my thumb! Normal sized bats are sort of okay, but when they're that teeny, ahhhh!

 

[Kathy Jetson]

It looks like fun so far except for the no jackets. I can't wait to see how the rest of it goes. I haven't been to a cave since the early 1990's unless you count the ones on Tom Sawyer Island and at IOA

 

[jenseib]

I love caves. I haven't been to one in quite some time. My firend and I wanted to go to one last summer a couple of hours away and Skip had a fit that I was going to go with out him(because he couldn't walk it because of his hip) so I just gave up on it. Maybe next summer we'll give it a try.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hello everybody! I'm sorry I haven't been on in a few days. My boss made an unexpected stop at the office Friday. (Remember, he's been out of the office for a week for his wedding.) I'm sure you can all guess what I was doing Friday. Yep, listening to him fuss about what all he was behind on. Ummm, sorry buddy but you're the one who got married and chose to take a week off. Not I.

Anyway, we were busy Friday and then we're busy again today since it's his first "official" day back at work. He has court this afternoon and I hope the Judge keeps his behind there all afternoon.

I've used a little time this morning to catch up on a few subscribed threads that I was behind on. Seeing everybody's pictures of Disney make me wish I were there now instead of behind this darn desk.

Our weekend was busy again. We took a trip to Ruston which is about 30 miles away and went shopping. We found Lacey's sandals to wear with her reception dress. Once we had those, we picked out her jewelry and the flower that she's going to wear in her hair instead of a veil. She also picked out two gifts for the ladies who are going to be helping with the food preparation. Oh and I got two necklaces. Our total was just $39! Can you believe that?

Once we were done with that shopping excursion, we got back on the interstate and went to an outlet store. I hit the jackpot at the outlet store. I bought three pair of dress pants, a camp shirt dress, a dress shirt, two button up shirts for Jesse for Christmas, a slip for Lacey, a long sleeve shirt for John and three or four pair of panties. Our total there was $86!

Mama bought a couple of things at the outlet too and her total was less than $25.

We racked up on the sales and were able to check even more things off our wedding "to do" list.

Okay, so I've spent enough time here. I need to get a few things off my desk and onto his. Hopefully, I'll be back this afternoon to post replies.

 

[natebenma]

I'm going shopping with you, girl!!!

 

[Curiouser&curiouser!]

You get some of the best deals!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Those are some great deals! This past weekend must have been good for deals. I was in my local mall to go to the Bed, Bath and Beyond outlet to get my cousin's wedding gift, and stopped in Old Navy. They were having a huge sale., so I got 2 pair of shorts for $6 each, a tank top for $3.49 and a short sleeve shirt for $1.47.

Hope you are able to get an update in this afternoon. Doesn't your boss know you need your Dis fix every day?

 

[KatMark]

Awesome job on the deals, Lisa.

And what the heck was the boss doing in on Friday? Wasn't it still "officially" his honeymoon?

 

[Bridora]

Hi Lisa! Things in "real life" have been interfering with my DIS time lately, but I've managed to catch up on your TR!

We were in the Gatlinburg area the week after you were for a family reunion...I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of your trip went. And of course, the rest of your Disney trip.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Let's continue on with our cave tour shall we? We were now deep under the Earth's surface and had seen quite a few beautiful formations. As I said before, the cave was formed by the flow of water and there were water falls, streams and dripping water everywhere which meant that the walkways were damp in most places and downright wet in others.

There were handrails during some portions of the tour and not in others. In the next picture you can see stalagtites (spelling?) that people had used as hand rails to go up the next rise:

The top of them were rubbed slick. Here's Hunter holding his Mama's hand so she wouldn't slip and fall. Notice the short handled purse.

The next section we came to required that we wait for the group in front of us to finish up. By this time, we had been in the cave for quite a while and, the whole time, Mama's purse kept slipping down her arm. We kept offering to carry it for her but she always said "no I got it". Well, by now, it was starting to irritate the poo out of her and she said if she could slip it over her neck she would. This got us tickled and we started laughing and making comments that she would look like a St. Bernard dog with one of the barrels around her neck. Hunter told her he would rather carry her purse than her look like a dog and that made us laugh even harder. We just couldn't stop laughing. I know everybody thought we were nutso but we didn't care. Finally, Mama said to stop making her laugh or she'd pee her pants (now you can see where I get that famous phrase from ). It took a lot of will but we finally stopped laughing because we figured it'd be more embarassing to walk around a woman with wet pants than it would a woman with a purse around her neck.

The group in front of us finished up and our guide told us that only a few at a time would be allowed to enter into the next "room" which I believe was called the cascade room (or something similar). The ledge that we would have to stand on was too small for more than five or six people. Mama opted not to go and waited to the side. I tried taking pictures of the beautiful cascades but they didn't turn out at all. We looked around and then went back up so that the next set of people could take a look.

While we were waiting for the rest of our group to look at the cascade room, the tour in front of us was going up a very narrow set of steep stairs to the next room. There was just one way into and out of the room. I took these while we were waiting our turn.

We moved to the side when the group in front of came down and our guide told us that we were about to go into the next room. He told us now many steps there were and the angle that we would be climbing in as well as the fact that, for a few minutes, we'd be ducking down to a space that was just over 4 foot high. There were a couple of benches near where we were standing and Mama asked if she could wait while we went ahead. He told her that she could so she and another lady with a child waited while we went on ahead.

I'm going to be honest with ya. The steps and stooping down were pretty rough. Had I put the camera away and held on with both hands, it might have been easier but I had to take pictures. Our guide continued to lead us and as we got to the top of the stairs, the handrails disappeared and we were standing in a big room with a pretty deep drop.

I inched my way to the back of the room so that I wouldn't get all woozy feeling. I did manage to snap a picture of too before I did that though:

**Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

(Just realized how slumped down and tired I looked in the picture above. Probably van-lagged.

Earlier in the tour, our guide had told us that the cave was found by two young boys who were 6 and 7 at the time. The cave was on one of the boys' grandparents' property and they found it while out playing. When all of us got into this large room (sans handrails despite the fact that there was a deep drop ), he told us that back when the boys were exploring the cave, there were no steps and the boys had chopped down a cedar tree and used it to climb from one point to another. They'd prop the tree up against one of the formations, climb up it and then pull the tree up with them and they'd do that over and over again until they got to a large ledge or one of the rooms.

When the boys first started exploring the cave, they wrapped rags around a stick and lit them. They found that the flames didn't last long so they soaked the rags in kerosene and they lasted a bit longer. The boys continued exploring the cave over the years and eventually took kerosene lanterns with them.

At that point, the guide told us to all move to the backside of the room and either sit down on the benches or lean against the wall because he was about to turn out the lights (what little there were). Once the lights were off, we couldn't see our hand in front of our face. It was D-A-R-K! He turned on his flashlight, held it above his head and shone it on the floor. He said that was about all the light the boys had from their kerosene lanterns. I would have beat my kids black and blue if I had found out they were exploring a cave like that! Not to mention having to get all that cedar sap off their clothes.

He turned the lights back on and illuminated some of the structures in the room. My pictures turned out pretty bad but I'll post them anyway.

The guide gave us all time to take more pictures before we started back down the steps.

Oooh, John and I look rough!

The guide told me that this formation had formed on a mere 7 inch long ledge and they were expecting it to fall anyday because of it's weight:

Sitting on the benches waiting on others to take their pictures:

***Phone is ringing off the hook so I need to stop here. Up next: More caves and critters!

 

[TinksThree]

You have me 2nd guessing if I want to go there with all of the steps and handrails and ledges and bats and dark places!! I really do not like heigths so just the thought is causing a panic attack!!!

While I was reading about the boys exploring the cave, your thoughts were my exact thoughts...beat them black and blue!!!

Good deals on your shopping trip!! We had Tax Free days this past weekend but it was a madhouse. We got a few good deals but those crowds just aren't worth it to me! We had considered taking advantage of Louisiana's this weekend but last weekend's experience may have changed our minds!

 

[407-W-DISNEY]

Hi Lisa,
You got some great deals!!! Congrats!!

Love the caverns...we went to the Luray caverns and some in PA near the pocono mountains...maybe near Wilkes Barre??..I find them so facinating!

As always, can't wait to hear more!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

I understand if you are afraid of heights how that could be scary, but I think that cave is beautiful. Though, I think for safety they should definitely have railings and such!

 

[Caretames1]

You're a shopper like me! I got Kadence done for this school year, last spring! Clearance ranks are my friend!