This group gathers to visit museums and historical sites like houses and churches and also natural landmarks and parks. I was in the middle of editing a manuscript for someone (I offer this service, so if you're interested...The Real Writer - Editing Services) so I could only attend the tour itself, not the lunch after, but I was determined to go. I don't want to fall too far behind and I'd missed several cool tours this group had arranged because they conflicted with other Meet Ups. It's also the only group where people actually commented prior to the event, making plans as a group. They seem quite lively. Old-fashioned word, lively, but I like it.
This Meet Up was for a tour of the Crystal Grottoes, some underground caves (apparently there are something like 170 in Maryland. Who knew?).
Pardon the pun, but after the tarot meeting and full moon circle, and the failed visit for the Venus Ritual, I needed some grounding. Literally.
The Grottoes are an hour and a half (or so) drive through beautiful farms and trees and eventually over mountains. I was forced to learn how to use the navigation application on my Smartphone in order to get there, so that was a plus.
It comes up out of nowhere with a very old, forties/fifties-type sign. There's minimal parking on a large-gravel lot. The view is lovely:
Apparently there are several Amish farms around (perhaps the one in the distance is one of them) and the owner later told the group (sitting on a park bench in a bowling shirt, smoking a cigar) that they clash once in a while. It sounded like the farmers didn't like all the activity when there are digging days (oh yes, you can sign up to dig out more sections of the caves - I might do it!).
I went in and found the tour had just started. "Fifteen bucks," the cigar-smoking owner growled (just how he talks), which I quickly handed over and he pointed me to a gate that enclosed some stairs in the middle of the room. At the bottom was a white door. I couldn't open it, kept shoving on it. Finally someone opened it on the other side and I did that stumbling into the middle of a group thing.
Everyone looked at me.
"Hi," I said. "Just running a little late." Tried to smile. Felt like a complete idiot, but also okay about feeling like a complete idiot. With age comes apathy, I guess.
I crept to the back of the group while the guide was talking and whispered to the two women in front of me, "Is this the museum group?"
"Yes," the both said, and the group leader introduced herself with a friendly smile. I told them my name and felt much better.
Now I could look around and take in the caves. Narrow passageways, water/bit of mud/rocks at our feet. Sound of dripping. Lights strategically placed to illuminate certain aspects of the cave.
The basics:
Random fact, these particular caves are always 54 degrees.
The guide was tall and very thin, maybe in his early sixties. White hair under a baseball cap, glasses. He told us he'd once squeezed through a twelve-inch gap between two rocks but that was as far as he could go. He knew someone who squeezed through a seven-inch gap, but he didn't try it.
He also told us he once rescued a father and teenage son who went into a cave on a Monday with three flashlights. All three lights died and they were left in total darkness. He and some others went in to search once it was determined they were missing and where they went, and finally found them on a Friday afternoon.
Can you imagine being in the dark in a cave below the earth (these grottoes are 80 feet below the earth, but many run deeper, of course). For days? The fact that you can't see anything means time will seem ten times itself. Unbearably long and terrifying. And their water and any food they'd brought would have run out.
"This is TD," the guide said at one point and switched off all the lights in the cave (light switches are rigged in various places in the rocks throughout). "Total darkness."
Total is right. All you hear is the dripping of the water that makes up the stalactites and stalagmites, the pearls and popcorn and draperies and bacon. It felt soothing to me, but then I had a flashlight in my purse and knew there were 11 other people nearby. I wasn't completely alone. Our guide also only left the lights off for about 20 seconds. Not nearly long enough to panic.
The formations all had names, as I mentioned just now - the popcorn and pearls-- according to their shape and size. What didn't have names the locals had made up based on what they looked like: there was a horse's head, an alligator jaw (the serrated teeth were pretty convincing), a garden gnome, a turtle.
This started to bother me after a while, especially when someone said the stalactites looked like dreads (you know, dreadlocks). All this naming eroded (no pun intended!) the meaning, value, and beauty of the caves and their formations (called speleothems).
Granted, some names are cool: Dogtooth spar, Frostwork, Moonmilk. Those I can accept as they are kennings (think Beowulf - "whaleroad" for ocean, that sort of thing). They are imaginative and stem from how the formation was - well - formed.
But, still, this naming thing that humans have to do. We can never just look and absorb and connect. We always have to name things, usually containing them or devaluing them by bringing them to our every day level. Always saying, "That's so beautiful." Well, duh. Calling a formation a turtle because that's what it looks like. Bleh.
We wandered about, saw some newly-birthed salamanders in a shallow pool - like dark threads in the water. Thank goodness I just got new glasses. The tour went by so quickly. The guide was very enthusiastic but, when he said there are three types of rock, I swear he said: igmeous, sedentary, and metamorphose.
The people on the tour were so excited to be there and we all waited as every one took their turn taking pictures. We chatted in the way you do on tours. No discomfort or awkwardness whatsoever.
At the end of the tour we left by this door - which I'm guessing they stole from a Hobbit house.
In the parking lot we listened to the owner talk and chew on his cigar, telling us how the place used to have a carnival/festival up on top of a nearby hill. Was discovered in the twenties, has been in the family ever since. He's third generation. You can just picture people visiting in the twenties and thirties, can't you?
Then most went off to lunch. I let the group leader know I couldn't go and she said, "I'm so glad you came; it was nice to meet you" and she hugged me!
I felt stupidly emotional about this. Many of the people in the groups I've visited have been friendly, but also wary. Many have been just plain wary. She was so totally friendly without reservation that it got to me. I didn't know I was missing that until she hugged me.
I really dig the vibe of this group, so I'm going to another Meet Up at an historical home closer to my house, possibly followed by brunch, this Sunday.
WHEN: March 25, 2012
WHERE: Grottoes (underground cave tunnels)
WHO: 4 men, 7 women (including me)
COST: $15, plus $3 tip to the guide
MILES: 141.36 miles RT
RATING: 9/10
THEME: Historical/Speleological
WHERE: Grottoes (underground cave tunnels)
WHO: 4 men, 7 women (including me)
COST: $15, plus $3 tip to the guide
MILES: 141.36 miles RT
RATING: 9/10
THEME: Historical/Speleological
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