CAVING & CAMPING

   
My wife, Lucy, and I enjoy caving and camping with a group of caver friends. You can tell the difference between real cavers and people who fancy themselves as cavers, but don't know what they are doing. Real cavers say they are going "caving". They never call it "spelunking". The northern Alabama, northern Georgia, and southern Tennessee area is a great place for cavers. The saying is that if you don't have a cave in your backyard then your neighbor probably does. In fact, there are so many caves in this area that the headquarters of the National Speleological Society (OK, they use the word in the name of the organization) is in Huntsville. The Huntsville group became known as Undergraph because so many of them worked at a company with a similar sounding name, when the group was first organized in the late 80s. Since then most have gotten smarter and now work somewhere else if they haven't retired, but the name has stuck.
     
Below are some examples of the type of interesting formations we see in just about every cave we go in.

Fern Cave - First survey trip
Fern Cave - Middle cave balcany room - Our friend Lamont.
Bluff River Cave - Our friend Angela.

Blue Spring Cave - Gypsum beards - Lucy.
Cedar Ridge Crystal Cave - Our friend Toni.
Fern Cave - Angela, Tom, Les, John, and Roger.

Blue Spring Cave - Our friend Mike.
Mike and me in Camp's Gulf Cave.
Neversink Cave - Eight on rope.
     
We usually go camping and caving with a large group two or three times a year where we enjoy "roughing it easy". Most of our camping equipment is monogrammed. It has Coleman embossed on it. Our idea of primitive camping is where we don't have an electrical and water hookup for the camper, and where we have to crush ice by hand for the daiquires. Since cooking is a hobby I can usually be found cooking for a few friends. Usually, just simple fare. For instance, in this photo I am preparing a simple camp meal consisting of chicken cordon bleu, herbed peas, Cajun dirty rice dressing, fresh baked beer bread, and, for dessert, cream brule. Click here to check out some of my favorite recipes.


The camp chef. 		Our RV. The RV, again!

     
Below are some other pictures from various caver campouts. Most come from the really big caver event of the year. We call it TAG which stands for Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia cavers. This is an annual event held every October in North Geogia.

Cavers do have lots of fun.

 The picture on the right is from a camping trip to Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee where the cavers repeled the falls. This is a drop of nearly 200 feet. Here you see our caver friend, Avis. We lost Avis not too long ago but she continued caving well into her 80s. In fact when this picture was made she probably rode her bicycle from the camp grounds over to the falls for this drop. She was quite an incredible lady. We all say we want to be just like Avis when we grow up.
Avis on rope at Fall Creek Falls.

Cavers do like to eat. Here we are enjoying a Luau.
Roger believes in "supersizing" his beers.
Here's Avis. You saw her on rope in the picture from Fall Creek Falls above.

Nicholas on rope at the climbing competition.
Not to be outdone Nick's twin sister Anika climbed next.
And, to keep it all in the family younger brother Mark shows them how to do it.

Getting ready for a big chili cooking.
Our regular camping friends Karen and Charlie.
A highlight of TAG is the big bon fire on Saturday night. This one started out as a pile about 25 feet high.