This week we went to Bluespring Caverns, and this was our last stop on the Indiana Cave Trail. After yet another six days of working, exhausted but excited, we hit the road to Bedford Indiana. For us, this was just over an hour drive across mostly flat farmland, with corn as the view. Not a particularly fascinating road trip to say the least, but sightseeing the country side wasn't the goal on this day, floating along an underground river was. We arrive to the park just after 1 PM and there are quite a few people there, as was expected for a Sunday. We find our parking spot and set off for our tickets, hand in our Passports and receive our reward shirts. Well that was the plan anyway. Of course they were out of shirts, but they took our information and promised to mail the shirts to us. As of this blog post, we have not received the shirts. Kind of disappointing.
After receiving our tickets, we waited for thirty minutes and then we were called to the departure area to begin our tour of the cave. Walking down to the cave was somewhat of a challenge. The walkway to the entrance is steep, and if a person struggles with a disability or is out of shape, that person will be challenged to finish the walk both to and from the cave. The closer we walked to the entrance, the cooler the air became. It was a welcome relief do to the hot summer air that had moved into the Midwestern USA. The tour guide had us stop just in front of the entrance and gave us a brief history lesson on how the cave was discovered, who owned the property and the approximate age of it. After the speech, we move into the cave and make our way to the boats. The cave was well developed for tourism with it having concrete walkways and handrails for easy access to the docks.
Ok, I have been in many caves in my lifetime but this was the first underground river that I have experienced. Sure Indiana Caverns has an in the cave boat ride as well, and it was an amazing adventure, but Bluespring Caverns was completely different. The entire sixty minute cave tour is all on the boat, so there is not much walking besides the walk to and from the boat dock. This made working with the camera much easier because I did not have to worry about where I was stepping and was free to take photos and video. What a stunning journey. I had no knowledge of what we would see in the cave before we went and I did not view any YouTube videos about Bluespring before we went. No camera can truly do this place justice and it must be seen first hand to be fully appreciated, but I did the best I could with my camera to capture the awesomeness of the cavern.
After the tour and our exit out of the cave, we made our way back out to the car to grab our lunch. We ate close to the gift shop where there are picnic tables and this is where I took the time-lapse photography. When we were finished with our lunch and time-lapse, we made our way back into the gift shop to buy our bags of mining materials. We were hoping for more mineral mining like we experienced at Marengo Cave, but all they had for us was fossil and arrow head mining. It turned out to be a fun experience, especially finding the arrow heads. Shortly thereafter, we left the park and headed home. Bluespring Caverns should be on everyone's bucket list, it is that grand. Looking back on the journey, going on the Indiana cave trail was definitely worth the time and expense, and who knows, maybe we will do it again in the future :) Have a great day and please subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Blogger!
Equipment that I currently use
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