Wednesday Part 2

So... here comes Wednesday Part 2!  Brandon finished up his paper and then me, him, Critter, and Ben decided we needed to do something together and have one last "good time".  That would be our last night that all four of us would be together until fall term.  So we got the random idea to go caving in Sinks of the Roundstone.  It wouldn't be a problem as I had been through several times.  We were going to do a straight run from one entrance and out the other.

So we all pitched in some money for gas and squeezed into Brandon's truck.  There was pretty bad fog.  But we eventually made it and hiked down to the cave entrance (at 11:45 at night).  The entrance had changed a lot.  The flooding had really changed the cave area.  It even looked like it moved some huge boulders.

We entered into the cave and we soon realized that we had not thought of something.  The flooding had left the cave very wet.  Normally, the hard clay/dirt floors and mounds are easy to climb.  However, it was all one giant cave full of very slippery mud.  Up and down we struggled to climb.  We seemed to be making good progress.  However, it was hard to go fast because of the mud and we did not take the normal ways of climbing through the passages because they were steep and now hard to climb due to the mud.  We finally reached a large open room where there was a huge tree that was washed back inside the cave.  We used it, and a bunch of organic matter to help climb up the mud.

However, a little while later we dropped back down to the stream and Ben announced that he had seen a shoe earlier, that had been washed in.  So we had made a circle. That wasn't hard to believe.  In a good majority of that part of the cave there is a huge mound (like a spine) running through the middle with the stream on one side, and another route on the other side.  So it appeared that we had missed out exit to go further on into the cave because we were always looking for an easy route through the mud.  So then I decided that we should just go back to the entrance.  It was clear we weren't going to have a "quick" shot through the cave.

So we began making our way back to the entrance.  Then Brandon said we should just wade through the stream back to the entrance (as the creek flows into the mouth of the cave).  That way we wouldn't have to struggle through the mud and we could clean our shoes off a bit.  So we began following the stream.  And probably 30 minutes later I stopped.  I knew something was not right.  We were in a passage that I had never been in before.  There was no dry ground to talk on.  The walls of the cavern came straight down to the water.  I told the guys that we were heading in a direction I had never been in.  Evidently there are a couple streams and somehow we began following a branch stream, not the one that flows into the cave from the main entrance.  So we turned around.

We retraced our steps and then turned left at the next passage.  I believed it was the main passage that would take us back to the entrance.  So we continued on this second passage for a while and then soon our lights shown upon a huge cave in.  Our path was totally blocked.  There was no way around it.  So we retraced our steps yet again.  We got back to the large passage again and I began to recognize it.  So I knew we had finally picked the right path.

Along the way on our "getting lost" we had found this little hole near the wall.  I climb down into it and discovered some water going through a small passage.  You could crawl through it.  I want to go back and check it out.

Soon, we suddenly found ourselves at the entrance, without really realizing it.  So we hiked back to Brandon's truck and it was there that we discovered really how filthy we were.

So we stripped off our shoes and socks, and threw them in the back of the truth.  And then, since we had not even prepared, we had no change of clothes (cause we weren't expecting it to be muddy).  So we were forced to strip down to our underwear so we would not get Brandon's seat filthy.  Needless to say, it was a little uncomfortable.  As Brandon said, if there was a man law we hadn't broke, we might as well get it over with and break it as we'd broken all the others.

So we rode back through thick fog in our underwear with our filthy clothes in the back of the truck.  Our greatest fear was what if a cop happened to pull us over and we would have to explain ourselves.  At one point, we though our nightmare had come true.  Brandon was getting ready to pass a truck when we saw sirens and lights behind us.  However, to our relief, it turned out to be an ambulance.

So we made it back to campus and Brandon parked his truck back in Student Parking.  So we spilled out of his truck and got dressed before walking back to our dorm to go to bed.  It was almost 2.

So we certainly had our last good time.  I think it's been one of the funnest times I've had in Sinks of the Roundstone, despite our unfortunate events.  But we definitely won't forget it.  And we were whippersnappers.  We didn't even think to tell anyone else on campus where we went.  It was only us 4 that knew.  But I guess that's what being young is about.  The rest of yall who are reading this might be thinking "You dumb guys" but I can tell you right now that you did the same kinda stuff so.... :P

But it was good times....  Looking forward to the next chance I get to crawl underneath the earth.  It's my favorite place to be...