Arrival time at Florida Caverns was about 15:20, giving us enough time to head straight to the caverns for the last tour of the day (before taking the trailer to the campsite .. which was a fair haul (3 miles) from the campsite). The last tour was at 16:00, providing us time to check out the museum and have a little snack.
As it turns out, the Florida Caverns surprised me (David) with how neat it is. The only dry cave for public viewing in Florida, it is representative of a whole series of similar caves in northwestern Florida. We went on a tour of about 1600 feet inside the cave, where we got to see a couple of bats (one at the entrance), and a whole series of neat formations (including the standard stalactites and stalagmites, as well as soda straws, columns, the 'pipe organ', 'wedding cake', 'turkey', 'dinosaur', 'sweet potatoes', etc. .. the items in quotes are what some of the formations looked like). Here is the pipe organ:
These caves were sometimes very low (about 3 and a half feet along the pathway, I suspect we will get a different story in Carlsbad Caverns). Here is a shot of HL in a not so low / not so high spot (for all of us HL fans):
Naturally, we need a group shot of the Sigler Six 'six feet under' .. actually more like about 30 feet under:
The Florida Caverns was a really neat experience for everyone (you could see the expressions of wonder as we toured the cavern). It was quite neat when the tour guide turned off the lights as we completed certain sections. At one point he had everyone stand very still and turned off the lights. He asked us if we could see our hand in front of our face (that's a negative, sir). Amazing! The temperature inside the caves is a constant 65 degrees (fairly warm really), with constant humidity. This turns out to be very important to one of the main inhabitants of the cave, the bats, since they are very particular about their sleeping quarters.
After the tour we went on a walking trail next to the caverns. Some plant varieties were just coming into bloom:
The campsite was quite a distance from the entrance (and the caverns). A fairly small campsite, it was quite private with cavernous bathrooms (generally, we did not like them, since you felt you were in a bowling alley or something). In the morning, we awoke to a steady rain, and thought we were destined to hang around here for another day. David took a little wander behind the campsite. It was beautiful. This is a picture of a swimming hole (complete with the standard Florida alligator sign right next to it). The really neat thing about this one is there is a steady flow of water coming downstream from this watering hole, but apparently nothing coming in! I believe it is fed by an underground spring or from an underground (through a cavern) river (there is one in the park):
Fortunately, at around 11:30 it started to clear up and we were able to take off to go to our next destination, to the 1995 US Beach of the Year in the Gulf of Mexico!