Finally, after a long 6 weeks, (as you probably noticed) we got to see Darren! He had spent the last 6 weeks working in Marianna Florida. It was 7 hours away from Naples. It is clear up in the Panhandle.
His last workday there was right before the Memorial holiday, and Darren thought it would be fun if we went up there to see him, hang out for the weekend and then come home together.
So I drove up there, and actually had a great time listening to C.S. Lewis books on CD. The kids were good and the drive was pretty. All the colors were beautiful while I was driving- it was like I was in Narnia or something. Where we live, in Southern Florida, it is very tropical. But once you get up North, past about Tampa, it changes to the "South". Where Darren lived was a lot more like Alabama and Georgia, and less like Florida.
We stayed in the house that his school provides for the students to live in. It was disgusting. They don't have a vacuum in the house, and didn't have someone come clean it between rotations, so the house hasn't been vacuumed in at least 12 weeks. Yea, 12 weeks. There were dead bugs, everywhere. And the furniture looked like it had been rejected from a land fill. I put a towel on it before I sat on it. Darren got a lint roller and "vacuumed" the carpets. At least we left it cleaner than we found it. We were able to have a great time despite the dead cockroaches.
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| He did it! |
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| His home for 6 weeks in Marianna |
They also have no internet and no TV at the house. So Darren had to go to the library to to his school assignments and such.
Anywho, there were some caves that we went to that were fun. Darren and I really like spelunking. We went to Nutty Putty while we were dating and that will always be a special memory. Me, driving my dad's green Jeep Cherokee really crazy over the dirt road trying to show off for Darren. Sorry mom and dad.
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| Getting ready to go in the caves. Hearing the rules from the tour guide which we heard another 20 times while in the cave. We get it, my kids aren't going to touch the precious stalactites. |
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| So cool! |
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| Yes I have a husband! Here he is! |
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| The wedding cake formation. Pretty cool. |
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| COOL!- But Don't Touch! |
Well I would have taken more pictures, but my camera's flash got turned off and I couldn't figure how to turn it back on.
Talking about cave tours I am reminded the difference between America and other countries. The laws in America can be annoying sometimes, but really they make everything nice and clean. What does this have to do with caves? Well, a cave tour in America is structured, organized and safe. The path through the cave had been made completely safe. No ducking, or crawling. Just a nice paved path to walk along. Any place the cave had been a little small they had carved out so you could comfortably walk through without hitting your head or tripping. Any extra rooms or scaryy drop offs had been filled in with rock or blocked off to keep everyone safe. And they won't let you touch anything.
When Darren and I were newly-ish married we went on a trip to Belize and went on a cave tour. Our tour guide did not speak any English. It made it hard to understand as the whole group of us were Americans. Luckily there was one guy who was halfway decent at Spanish and translated for us. We walked along a sort of path as a string of lights flickered overhead, powered by a huge, noisy generator outside. I knew for sure they would go out any moment and we would all be lost forever. As we walked along we saw an alter they used to use for sacrifices. It was pretty creepy. A little further along our tour guide played the drums on the stalagmites, showing us how they all made different sounds. If only our American tour guide had been there she surly would have fainted right then and there! He continued this music on if we passed close to any stalactites or stalagmites. We ventured deeper in the cave and there were steep drop offs into blackness with no hand rails or anything! At one point we walked along some make shift metal bridge that looked like a kid had built. Falling would have been certain death. I am sure if someone had fallen the guide would have just kept on going. When we were pretty deep in the cave the string of lights overhead ended. Our guide asked if anyone had a flashlight. Yea, that's right. Our guide had no light source in case that string of lights had gone out. We all looked around at each other and 2 people presented little lights on their key chains. These 2 were going to go in front and our tour guide was going to take us back a different way. He smiled and thought this was such a fun idea. I was so naive, and agreed! I shudder at the thought now. Maybe I'm getting older or smarter. I think the latter. Anyways, we divided into 2 groups and followed our 2 little light sources over, around, under rocks and through rooms. I started to wonder if this was such a good idea. Eventually we made it back to the outside world. I will never forget that trip and the guide had no flashlight.
