Well, as some of you may know (from previous posts), I am a caver. I am a member of the National Speleological Society (NSS). I am also the Vice-Chairman of a local chapter of the NSS, the Louisville Grotto. This weekend, we held our annual chili cook off where, our members bring their best of the best recipes out for judging. Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, someone new goes home with a trophy and, bragging rights.

At any rate, our cook off is held on our 67 acre property (a caving preserve). And, on our property, there are 5 caves. Well, I was asked to give a tour of one of our caves. And, since I've been dying to get "underground" in my kilt, I thought "well, I couldn't have asked for a better excuse" :mrgreen:. So, I decided to give them the tour of our biggest cave. I was a little hesitant at first, considering cave mud doesn't come out (it stains clothing). And, having a kilt on, I took my time moving about. But, this cave is a huge horizontal cave and, no crawling, climbing or scooting necessary. So, if I had mud on my kilt, it was from me sitting down (which I decided against it).

Here are some photos of our trip. The captions are above the photos:


posing in front of the entrance (my group behind me, in the cave)





Just right inside the entrance





The lowest point of the cave, about 750 feet in and, only about 4 feet from floor to ceiling





Trying to look serious :mrgreen:





My youngest son coming back down from the breakdown





There were only about 50 or so bats in the cave (mostly, little pips, a couple browns, 1 gray)





One of the people on my tour had their dog with them. Here, my oldest son "babysat" the dog for them.





Here I am helping my youngest son traverse a passageway at the top of a mound of breakdown (about 65 feet up). Notice the mud on him and, none on me (hehehe). He's a boy, he found it amusing sliding down a very muddy bank, LOL.