I just returned from a marvelous visit home and I planned on blogging about my spelunking adventure immediately after it happened. But a tragically slow internet connection and an incredibly entertaining niece and nephew kept me busy the whole time. So, belatedly, I will tell you about the caving adventure...
Sterling stated that he always wanted to find a cave when he was a kid and Dad informed him that we, as luck would have it, had our own bonafide cave behind the garage! I was roped in by the fear of my dad and Sterling down in the cave together without a conversation facilitator and because I'd obviously forgotten how terrifying it was.
What follows is a step by step of our Christmas Spelunk:
1) Stering is lowered/climbs down by a rope into the darkness.
2) I follow... sliding down the rope like a fire pole because the knots are tied too far apart. All the way down, I am thinking, "What the hell am I doing?!"
3) Dad gracefully descends after us.
4) We hang out in the cave, marveling at the fossils in the walls and how big it is. Sterling and Dad wonder what's through that tiny tunnel that we can't crawl through. I wonder how I'm going to get up. They discuss why the water rushes through so quickly. I discuss why I'm scared to go up.
5) 15 minutes or 5 hours later, Sterling decides to ascend first and shouts up to my computer-programming, PhD earning, non-weightlifting brother that he's ready to come back up.
6) This is tricky because the rock face is so narrow that it is impossible to climb up. Sterling climbs up part way and relies on my brother to pull him up the rest of the way. Obviously, this is difficult. Sterling gets to the top after a harrowing experience. I worry that he will run away and never come back.
7) I throw the safety rope around my waist and try not to panic. I am lifted, pulled up to the sheer rock face/tunnel where circulation in my arms is cut off and I start to panic. I softly moan, "Pull. Please pull." And Dad shouts at them from below, "PULL!" I think that someday in the far off future this will be over and that there is a distinct chance that my arms will fall off. The boys pull me to the part where I can climb the rest of the way and I pant in the opening of the cave thinking, "Well, that was the last time for that!"
8) Dad ascends the rope with the help of the boys and I and it is determined that my loud voice is the best contribution I can make to the rope pull. (I'm the one who can shout the loudest to aid in communication down the hole.)
9) Charles, Sterling, Dad and I look at each other with thanks and dirt in our eyes.
10) Dad and I firmly state that that was our last trip in the cave.
11) I take a shower and note the rope burns on my back and armpits. Then I lift my niece and marvel at how she gained so much weight while I was in the cave... Surely she wasn't so heavy before.
12) Congratulatory libations are consumed. Huzzah to the spelunkers!
Sterling stated that he always wanted to find a cave when he was a kid and Dad informed him that we, as luck would have it, had our own bonafide cave behind the garage! I was roped in by the fear of my dad and Sterling down in the cave together without a conversation facilitator and because I'd obviously forgotten how terrifying it was.
What follows is a step by step of our Christmas Spelunk:
1) Stering is lowered/climbs down by a rope into the darkness.
2) I follow... sliding down the rope like a fire pole because the knots are tied too far apart. All the way down, I am thinking, "What the hell am I doing?!"
3) Dad gracefully descends after us.
4) We hang out in the cave, marveling at the fossils in the walls and how big it is. Sterling and Dad wonder what's through that tiny tunnel that we can't crawl through. I wonder how I'm going to get up. They discuss why the water rushes through so quickly. I discuss why I'm scared to go up.
5) 15 minutes or 5 hours later, Sterling decides to ascend first and shouts up to my computer-programming, PhD earning, non-weightlifting brother that he's ready to come back up.
6) This is tricky because the rock face is so narrow that it is impossible to climb up. Sterling climbs up part way and relies on my brother to pull him up the rest of the way. Obviously, this is difficult. Sterling gets to the top after a harrowing experience. I worry that he will run away and never come back.
7) I throw the safety rope around my waist and try not to panic. I am lifted, pulled up to the sheer rock face/tunnel where circulation in my arms is cut off and I start to panic. I softly moan, "Pull. Please pull." And Dad shouts at them from below, "PULL!" I think that someday in the far off future this will be over and that there is a distinct chance that my arms will fall off. The boys pull me to the part where I can climb the rest of the way and I pant in the opening of the cave thinking, "Well, that was the last time for that!"
8) Dad ascends the rope with the help of the boys and I and it is determined that my loud voice is the best contribution I can make to the rope pull. (I'm the one who can shout the loudest to aid in communication down the hole.)
9) Charles, Sterling, Dad and I look at each other with thanks and dirt in our eyes.
10) Dad and I firmly state that that was our last trip in the cave.
11) I take a shower and note the rope burns on my back and armpits. Then I lift my niece and marvel at how she gained so much weight while I was in the cave... Surely she wasn't so heavy before.
12) Congratulatory libations are consumed. Huzzah to the spelunkers!
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