Mommy, scared?! Noooooo......

Well, I was supposed to go on a trip friday with the girls to go see Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery but Im such a mom that I couldnt leave my Eli behind so we decided on a family trip to
Boulder Cave up past Naches. My husband had looked it up the week before and funny enough I had just heard about it as well from my cousin Jennie and thought it sounded totally awesome! My husband and I both thought it was a hike up to the cave and a peek inside and then a hike back from where you came. I was also picturing the cave to be a small hole in the side of a medium sized rock. You know, the kind they find heiroglyphs in and maybe a small bat or two lives way in the back because a fuzzy family of bears occupies the cave with sofas, a small kitchen, and of course, honey galore. Eli has been asking us to go on an adventure for some time now so we were so excited to take him up to the cave. At home LeRoy and Eli packed their guns, grenades, knives, binoculars, and a headlamp for the trip. Eli was set! The picture of my boys walking with their backpacks on, Elis has Buzz Lightyear on it and LeRoys is one that I got as a prize from a dance team championship, hehehe:) Anyways, we set off with ready to explore and the kids full of excitement! harper Jo even got a new pair of shoes for the trip;) We first see a cave that is young and still being carved out down in the canyon and I am confused because that looks like a pretty big cave! Dangerous! oooohhh! Now Im a little nervous as to what is in that thing! We walk a little further and there is a sign leading you to the entrance or the exit of the cave and I realize you get to walk entirely through this thing! I still couldnt see it though so I figured it couldnt be very big. Once we were down the hill that leads to the entrance my breath was taken away by a huge wall of solid rock with a big black hole in it! Eek! Eli immediately starts asking if there are bad things in there and I instantly am aware of the frightened look on my face and I tell him with a smile that there are no bad things in the cave and mommy and daddy would never take him somewhere there are bad things. We take a few pictures outside the cave and then read the cave guidelines that remind you that no flash photography is to be taken and keep your voice at a whisper as to not disturb the BATS! Im not terrified of bats, but Im also not exactly thrilled with the images going through my head of one of my children starting to yell and a gaggle of bats flying around my head as I run and scream in terror only to attract more of the flying beasts. But then again, I think, that would make for a really good story. It didnt happen. So here I am still thinking that this cave must be small once you get inside. Well, onceyou get inside there is a point where it becomes pitch black! You literally cannot see one thing in there besides the blessed green glow of the rocks right in front of you from my husbands headlamp. As we are fumbling to find our way through all I can think of is what in the world this place would look like if it were all lit up? How many bats are overhead? How high or low is the top of this thing? How deep is the water that is running past us? Well, I still dont know the answers to those questions and maybe Im glad I dont! What I did know was what daylight looks like at the end of a long dark cave. It was so much fun and exciting being in there and experiencing a part of nature like that that we decided to go through a second time! We ended up having a fabulous time and I was able to enjoy the creepiness of the cave. I guess a large dark cave is better than a cave full of bears!