Today's theme - Underground. We started the day at Wind Cave National Park in Hot Springs, SD. Almost missed the prairie dogs as we were looking for bigger game. Out of the car, you could hear lots of chirping and then you noticed there were hundreds of them all around. I guess they are kinda cute, but I don't want them in my yard!
See the large herd of Buffalo in the background?
The largest natural opening to the cave was only about 10 inches in diameter - luckily there was a door for us.
We are trying to show the wind coming from the cave opening, as it is blowing my hair
This cave's defining feature, boxwork formations, had nothing to do with water. Being a dry cave, there were no stalactites or stalagmites. The boxwork is formed by a process too complicated for me to follow. They are very fragile - about like a really thick kettle cooked potato chip (that's what we were told - we didn't break off any souvenirs to see).
The cave was very tight and only opened up into a few larger rooms. (Our tour only covered a fraction of the overall cave.) It was completely different from Mammoth Cave, except for the total darkness when they turned the lights out.
Back out in the sunlight, we headed for Jewel Cave National Monument in Custer, SD, when we spotted this mule deer.
We passed a field where someone apparently liked to collect old farm implements and let them rust. I thought it might make a good HDR shot with all of the clouds in the sky.
Jewell Cave was completely different from Wind Cave. It was wide open and most of the cave walls were covered with a layer of calcite crystals that got thicker as we got deeper into the cave.
Chunks have broken off, showing the exposed edge of the calcite crystals that line most of the cave walls. This is about 6 inches thick. It gets thicker as we descend.
Unlike Wind Cave, this one had areas with formations created by flowing water. Technically, these are a form of stalactites, but I think they should be called "jellyfish."
I don't know how well this picture shows it, but there was a "curtain" formation they called "Bacon." It was about 30 feet long and 8-12 inches wide and the coloring was exactly that of a giant strip of bacon - very strange!
I think we were told there were 300 steps on our tour and it turned out to be quite a workout.
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