Saturday, November 20, 2010

Marvel Cave

"And Angus ran to find his house.  But SNOW came, and WIND came, and into a CAVE crawled Angus, and he waited and waited and waited until -- DAY came."  From "Angus Lost" by Marjorie Flack

One of Evan's favorite parts of "Angus Lost" is when Angus has to wait in the cave all night long until morning comes.  There is a cave in Evan's "Angus Lost" Lapbook, and he loves to put Angus in and out of the cave.  This has brought up some discussion about what caves are and what there is inside of caves.  So today, we took a field trip to Silver Dollar City to visit the Marvel Cave attraction.  Evan was so excited.  We probably talked about Angus at least 20 times while we were walking through the cave.  He thought it was so neat to be in a cave, just like Angus. 

To get down into the cave, we walked over 600 stairs, and went through lots of deep tunnels and narrow passageways.  Marvel Cave is a wet limestone cave, and we were able to see lots of formations that are still alive and growing!  When you first go in, you travel 300 feet below the surface and enter what they call the Cathedral Room - the largest cave entrance room in the United States.  You can see a virtual tour of the Cathedral Room at this link:  http://www.bransonsilverdollarcity.com/rides-attractions/index.html  Since the whole park is decorated for Christmas, they had a huge tree made out of lights.  The guide turned all the lights off, making it pitch black, and then she turned on the Christmas Tree.  Evan thought that was really neat.  But then he decided he didn't like the dark, and started shouting, "I don't want it to be dark anymore!"  The guide quickly turned the lights back on!  At the end of the tour, they have a train that takes you up out of the cave, so both boys loved that!  It was red so Evan kept saying that we were riding on James.  It was a really neat experience.  I'm anxious to read "Angus Lost" with Evan tomorrow to see the new appreciation he has for the cave in the story.  He'll remember "the cave" for a long time!

Evan waiting to go on his first Cave Tour.
 
Diagram of Marvel Cave.  Sure glad we didn't have to walk back up!
 
I think cave formations are some of the neatest looking things there are!

Cave tunnel.
 
Evan thought it was really neat to be in a cave, "just like Angus!"

Christmas tree in the Cathedral Room - this picture doesn't do it justice.  It was huge!

Evan was eager to see what was around every corner.

"Come on Mom!  Are you coming Dad?!"

All three of my boys!

Another amazing cave formation.
To see more pictures from our tour of Marvel Cave, visit: 

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