Even Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death … Or A Cave
Ever get all excited and start jumping up and down after agreeing to go off on some crazy adventure without, well, really thinking about exactly what you just committed yourself to?
Like biking across the country, sailing around the world, running a marathon, hiking the Inca Trail. Wow, that sounds great, I can’t wait, this will be so cool …
And then you actually think about what you just committed to.
Yeah. So apparently yours truly and eldest Son of Thunder are off on another Boy Scout adventure. This time we will be exploring a cave. Okay, no problem. We are to bring “old clothes” because we “probably” will get muddy. I guessing that because of the “old clothes” suggestion, and the fact the tour provides headlamps, gloves and knee pads.
So my rapier wit is figuring the knee pads and gloves are to provide some protection as apparently we get to crawl. In the mud. And the last time I had fun crawling around in mud I was five years old.
But wait, there’s more. Because we are to bring a plastic bag to put our “old clothes” in and have something else to change into. Why? Because we are going to spend the night in said cave.
What the heck was I thinking?
Now, being a former investigative journalist, I’ve done some, well, investigating.
Here’s what the cave web site says, along with a few choice comments from me: “includes some belly crawls (none of which are too long. I define too long as longer than half the length of my body. We shall see), a visit to sandpaper slide (most memorable. The definition of “memorable” depends on one’s viewpoint. And my butt is going to hurt.), passing through the famous 49-cent squeeze. Why is it not a 50-cent squeeze, at least that way I’d have half a chance.
So I have the privilege of getting muddy, sandpapering my rear-end and hopefully not getting stuck in the famous squeeze and slowly rotting away to become a sight-seeing event for future tours.
And yes, there will be bats. I know this because there’s a word of caution on the web site, which, as near as I can tell, means said bats MIGHT be infected with something far worse than, say, rabies.
“White Nose Syndrome (WNS) is a fungus that covers the faces and wings of bats as they hibernate and has been observed as far south as the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee and as far west as Oklahoma. While no afflicted bats have been found in the Chattanooga area, Raccoon Mountain Caverns is working hard to prevent the spread of WNS.”
So at least we got that going for us as we bed down for the night – thinking about some white-nosed bat sucking the very life out of us.
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I need more bat mace.
But golly gosh darn, we are going to have fun. And I am prepared (being the dad of a Boy Scout and following the creed and all). I’m packing a tent, in case it rains inside the cave. I’ve got plenty of flashlights and emergency radios – all solar-powered thank you very much. (Just doing my part to help the environment). And in honor of those Chilean miners, I’m taking a brand new pair of Oakley sunglasses and SPF-50 cream for UV protection.
Another dad said he’d bring the firewood, so I feel we’ll cover that whole “be prepared” deal.
We also can bring water, energy bars, candy bars, granola bars, but no portable bar. And no carbonated drinks. Apparently said carbonated drinks will make us burp more, which in turn will release more CO2 and thus lead to our suffocating deaths quicker thank anticipated.
This came up during the pre-cave visit pep/fear talk for all the scouts from our fearless scoutmaster. And he was nice enough to let the boys know that “almost everyone comes back alive.”
One concern, other than everything else, is we aren’t going into the cave until like 6 p.m. or so. And it’s supposed to be a four-to-six hour excursion. I hope those guides know what they’re doing, because personally I think it’s going to get dark – with the sun going down and all – in that cave before we get done.
I admit I got sort of a look from Eldest Son when I mentioned the possibility of bats. And no, I did not include all that white-nosed information. And rabies. No, didn’t mention that either. But he did give me a look, and it was not exactly a “oh wow, how cool is that” kind of look about seeing bats sucking the life blood out of him.
He also asked about bears – this being winter and that whole hibernation thing. And I assured him, well, as best as I could assure myself, that bears were probably not going to be a factor.
But that got me thinking about other things, those things you don’t want to disturb when you play dwarf, like in the Lord of the Rings. Those things that come out when you start going too far underground, where you have no business being anyway. You know, things like Orcs. Now I figure there’s going to be enough of us that it’s going to take a pretty big army of Orcs to bother us. So I’m okay there. And I’ve got one of those Orc blades like Frodo had in the Lord of the Rings.
Now Cave Trolls, that’s another matter. I hate Cave Trolls. They are worse than the clichéd bull in a china shop. They stink – bad; they just wade in like a rhino and destroy your camp; oh, and they squash you with their feet, if they haven’t already smashed your head in with that big spiked mace thing.
And we are not even going to mention, let alone say, “Balrog.”
To be continued …?
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