Lava River Cave

First let me show you around the campground like I have promised to do for the past week!

Here is the family lodge. Today is member appreciation day, so they had a free ice cream social. We of course took them up on their generosity.

Family Lodge

Just to the left of the family lodge is both the adult pool and the kids pool. The adult pool also has a hot tub.

Adult pool with hot tub in rear right

Here is the kids pool which is just the right of the adult pool. There is a separate fence around both pools. The pools are open until 10:00 pm.

Kids Pool

To the right of the family lodge is the Island which is connected by two foot bridges. You can see camping spots beneath the trees in the distance. There is a firepit for weinie roasts on the Island. The water is called the Oxbow. The picture is taken from one of the bridges.

The bridge

In the distance you can see some flags. This is the putt-putt golf and Frisbee golf courses. 

Golf

They have an area called The Town Square. They have a book repository where you can drop off books or take a book, they have a bbq restaurant, and of course the country store. They also have FAST internet... a first at Thousand Trails. I ran a speed test on it, and it was over 5 mps.

Town Square

There are cute facades in the Town Square. Above shows the Blacksmith. Below are some cute headstones.

Click on the picture to read the headstones

Here is the Country Store. They are really well stocked.

Country Store

Now it's time to go to the Lava River Cave. The cave is a Lava River from 15,000 years ago that formed the lava tube. It is over one mile long.

LRC sign

This path takes you to the entrance to the cave. It is in the middle of the parking lot. There are no lights so you need to make sure you have enough light for as far as you go. They do rent propane lanterns for $5.00 at the entrance. We took 2 flashlights each so we had backup.

Path to the entrance

Here is the entrance to the cave. There are stairs carved into the rock.

LRC entrance

 Patty starting into the cave. The steps are very wet which you can probably surmise from the moss over head.

Hang on tight!

Looking down the stairs into the cave.

Cave shot

These huge looking gemstones were actually ice crystals. We didn't expect to see those down there. The temperature keeps a pretty constant 44 degrees so I don't know that I understand why large Ice rocks are down there.

Ice Crystals

 It was so cold down in the cave and the steps were wet, so when the sun hit the stairs the steps would steam. it looked really cool in person, and I'm surprised it showed up in the picture!

Smoking steps!

We only went part way in the cave because we came to some more steps that were literally straight down! With my fear of heights and in the dark I decided it didn't make any sense. Patty was able to make it, but she said the grab rails were even low for her. We talked to some people that turned around soon after and they said that after the stairs it evened out and was just sand, but that it was just cave the rest of the way, and we had already seen the good stuff.
We decided to turn around and head back.

That's it for today,
God Bless.. We love you all!
Brian and Patty