This was a happy and busy week. Brother M and S's best buddy came back from Utah on a business trip with his dad. They have been anxiously looking forward to F's visit ever since it was planned. We had a lot of good ideas for activities. In the weeks leading up to this visit many sentences started with, "When our buddy F comes we should do..."
Play with legos and calico critters was high on the list. F arrived the night of a cub scout camp out so they did that together too.
Tuesday we drove out to State College area to go to Penn's cave.
Although I grew-up only a a few hours away, I just learned about the existence of Penn's cave a couple months ago. It sounded like a tour that I did in Ninh Binh, Vietnam. I was so excited to take the kids to see something that I hoped would be similar.
It was amazing. And very hard to photograph. Sorry!
Our guide did a wonderful job explaining the geology of the cave and the history as far as we know.
Here is one quick excerpt from their website:
Penn’s Cave is located in the topographic region of Pennsylvania known as the Ridge and Valley section of the Appalachian Highlands; within this section, the cavern is located in the physiographic division known as the Ridge and Valley Province. The Penn’s Cave area is a typical karst terrain, which is characterized by a large number of caves, springs, sinkholes, and surface streams that disappear underground.
Find out more on their website.
The cave stream feeds into a lake. We exited there and then turned around and came back through the other side.
My kiddos were a little nervous when we got into the boat, but they all made it! And our buddy F and his dad too. I am so glad we went. It was incredible.
And one more thing...
Experiencing a sink hole first hand.
This sink hole is over one section of the cave.
The wildlife park had bison and a bunch of other animals that we elected to skip visiting officially, but caught glimpses of as we were walking around the cave area.
