Day 2.
The kids dyed eggs with Dalen the night before, so now they get to work on it again. Helena still likes to make me an anchor one in purple like she has for the last few years. She also gave Ada one of her eggs because Ada didn’t think that she did as many as she thought – Helena has turned in to be a great big sister (well, at times, since she will still push Liam out of the way to get in front at times).
The kids and I went to Wisconsin to go to Crystal Cave. I didn’t tell them where we were going other than “Wisconsin”, which they thought was an adventure in itself. On the way we stopped at McDonald’s where I ordered four Happy Meals so that they can get different dragons from “How to Train Your Dragon”. I wouldn’t let them open them up in the restaurant because I figured that they would lose a wing, like the one Liam lost on 8th and Hennepin the weekend before when we were downtown. But as soon as they were climbing into the van, they wanted them opened and put together. All three played together with them in the van the best they could. They attacked “The Vikings” for twenty or thirty minutes.
When we pulled into the road leading to the cave, Helena saw that we were going to a cave, and the kids were excited. I wasn’t sure how they would react since they’ve often thought about them as scary from the books that they read. We waited about twenty minutes for the tour to begin, and then we began walking down the steps to get down into the cave itself.
The kids loved the bats – maybe because they were so small. We all liked when they turned off all the lights and the guide told us to put our hands in front of our faces so that we could know how dark it really was. Helena said that she could still feel her hand. Apparently pitch blackness doesn’t affect anything more than sight.
The kids were great inside the cave; some other kids were there that weren’t so well behaved. The kids stayed with the tour guide and listened to every thing that she said, including believing stories that were funny “untruths” such as “walk around that pillar once and you’ll have good luck” or the story of the inventor that lived in the cave who built a boat motor that exploded which “explained” why different parts of one part of the cave looked like a motor, a propeller, etc.
After the tour the kids ran around outside through the fields, got a little muddy, and then we got back into the van. Ada fell asleep right away, Liam after awhile. Helena laughed because Liam’s mouth was open while he was sleeping, but he’s done that forever. Then she asked when we could go back.
Liam had Dalen write this about his trip:
Crystal Cave Trip With Daddy
In the cave there were bats as big as a grown-up’s thumbs. There were four different kinds of bats. And there were three floors when you start to go down to the 3rd Floor there is a tiny waterfall. There were rocks that looked like slime and if you touched them they would not grow. There was a trail in the cave and if you went in it you would have o crawl out. It would take one and a half hours to get out. If you touched a slimy rock wall it would sort of feel like you were playing with your gum. It has a big rock that you can climb on if the worker says and it is also like a little short cut. The worker turned off the light and Liam said, “Well, I can’t see my hand but I can feel my hand!”
