Monday, May 23, 2011

Summer To-Do List: Louisville MEGA Cavern

Welcome back to the summer to-do list. Last time I blogged about something practical: a clothing resale shop called Clothes Mentor (that's an odd name, isn't it?) Today I have something more fun in mind.

I can't believe I haven't been to the MEGA Cavern yet.  I'm a cave nut.  I'm the opposite of claustrophobic.

One of the best-- if not the best-- memories I have is spelunking in an underground cave in New Zealand. It was a six-hour expedition, and we were outfitted in scuba suits under jumpsuits, helmets with headlights, knee pads, elbow pads.

Rappelling down underground waterfalls.  Swimming underwater through underground tunnels, not knowing if the tunnel would end before you ran out of breath.  Drinking hot cocoa, halfway through, in a cave lit by glow-worms. Ascending, finally, at the end of the expedition by climbing an underground cliff-face and out of a literal hole in the ground and emerging in a grassy meadow full of cows.

Night had fallen when we were in the cave, and when we squiggled out of the narrow hole, we were confronted by a night as dark as the cave, lit only by the brightest field of stars I've ever seen.  Amazing.

Of course, Louisville MEGA Cavern is nothing like that. Not really sure what those caps are all about in "MEGA."  Nor have I ever understood the difference between caves and caverns.  But there are 17 miles of caverns located under Louisville.  Many of them man-made, at that!  And Louisville MEGA Caverns will take you on a Jeep tour of many of them. And if you "check in" on Facebook and show them you've checked in you get $1 off your ticket price.

So, that's totally on my Summer To-Do list.  Go visit Louisville MEGA Caverns.

Bless their hearts, but here's something that's NOT on my To-Do list: in July they will open a huge, underground Mega-Zipline.  Awesome, original, exciting.  And I'll tell you more about it when I hear more about it.

But I will NOT be giving it a test run.  My fear of heights is insurmountable.  Really.  Paralyzing. Awful. I can't even climb a ladder to paint the tops of my 12' walls. Really.

That being said... on that same trip to New Zealand, I bungee jumped off the first commercial bungee jump spot in the world-- and the second highest at the time-- on the bridge above the Kawarau River with the AJ Hackett Company.  Yes, I was trying to impress a guy.  No, it didn't work... at that moment (probably because I cried and swore like a crab boat captain on the Bering Sea during the whole experience). But I did end up dating him a couple of months later.  Hey, I was in my stupid twenties. It is what it is.

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