I'm going to start off with a bit of a disclaimer - I was supposed to show my ass to everyone once we were hundreds of feet underground, but I was remiss & did not do so. My sincerest apologies to Mr. Bill Scanga - at whose behest I was to perform this dubious task - but I was not able to fulfill your request on this particular outing. Given the sweaty, grime filled state of my posterior by the time we reached several hundred feet underground, I am certain that my oversight was a welcome one by all those in attendance.
And speaking of those in attendance - the line up was as follows: Me. Tom. Billie. Kris. Billie's Nephew Joe (AKA "The Rat Boy" - this kid had no bones & could squeeze through a keyhole). Tom's Friend Noreen. And Tom's Friend Noreen's Friend Craig. We ended up taking the tour with a few other folks (about 14 of us total) but their presence was ancillary, and as it turned out, more of a detriment than any source of humorous incident. I won't go into too much negative detail - but if you have spent the last several months in your trailer watching QVC, smoking unfiltered Lucky's, eating Romanburgers & Ben N Jerry's "Chunky Monkey", and yelling at the dogs - you may not want to attempt to hike down into Laurel Caverns just yet. Unless, of course, you'd like to spoil it for those that have the great fortune of going with you.
I started my day at 5:35 in the morning. No too early, I agree. But it just so happened I did not get into bed until about 12:15 (which is actually early for me). Turns out Tom didn't hit the rack until about the same time. I was delighted to find that Duquesne Light was actually able to keep the power on through my entire show - but that story is an entire web page in and of itself - but suffice to say that I've had some problems in the last few weeks.
I hadn't planned on taking my camera given that we were heading underground - but when I walked out of my house I was treated t an awesome sunrise right in my back yard - so I ran in & grabbed it & snapped a quick photo. Glad I did, too..... I made it to Tom's house in about 10 minutes - at about 6:20. I had my bag of Spelunking clothes & my camera & was ready to rock. In an email Tom had told me that we needed to meet Billie & Co. at the Eat-N-Park in Monroeville at 6:45. Tom must have expected me to be late, as the truth came out & we did not have to meet them until 7:00. We were off in Tom's Neon - first stop the Firehall to "borrow" some flashlights. Well, let me rephrase that - to borrow some portable search lights. These babies were fairly large and about 8 pounds in weight. Doesn't sound too bad does it? Try crawling around in passages little bigger than you body with one of these things strapped to your neck. HOWEVER - they were awesome and super bright, and the best part - free. Now it's off to Monroeville for a tasty breakfast at Eat-N-Park with Billie & Co.
Or not. Tom is an excellent navigator - as am I. However - when they TEAR DOWN THE BUILDING YOU ARE LOOKING FOR it can be a bit difficult to use that as a point of reference. Yes, it's true - they had torn down the Eat-N-Park where Tom believed we were supposed to rendezvous for breakfast. We had a feeling that there was another Eat-N-Puke somewhere near by - but we had no idea where. We even stopped at a Denny's "just in case". No big deal - just call Billie on her Cell Phone! We stopped in the parking lot of the former building known as Eat-N-Puke and made a call.....
Cell Phones are great - they can keep you in touch with the world no matter where you are. That is, of course, as long as you TURN THEM ON. At this point Tom & I gave Billie & Kris far too much credit. We figured that since it was now almost 7:30 they would have already gotten on the road. Yes - we assumed that Billie was on time and we headed for the T-Pike. Tom did get a garbled voicemail - but it was of little help. We finally pulled over, called Kris's parents, and then called the "other" Eat-N-Park in Monroeville. They were there.........
We decided to meet at the first rest stop on the T-Pike. I really really wanted something deep-fried & a coffee with a human hair in it. I was not disappointed. The girl ("Crystal") at the counter (at McDonalds) had so many piercings in her right ear that it looked like a perforation on the edge of a coupon. She was as cheerful as any 17 year old slacker working at a McDonalds on a turnpike at 7:00 in the morning has ever been. As it would turn out - Ronald was not on my side & I was glad they had decent rest rooms at the caverns. We did, however, meet up with Billie & the crew, and we were off to find the caverns.
The ride there was mostly uneventful - other than the fact that we took several unnecessary turns & ended up retracing our steps several times - but it was an awesome morning for a drive - so who cared! We even stopped in Normalville to get directions! After a few more minutes on some great back roads we started to get a view of our locale - and we were plenty high up! We got to the caverns just in time to see Noreen & Craig in the lower parking lot. We all got changed & went in to pay & do the deed.....
We had to sit through an orientation - they wanted us to be aware of what our day would be like & what we'd be best doing (and not doing) while we were down in the hole. We were also each issued a helmet & "sanitized chin strap". Good thing it was sanitized - 'cause mine looked like the last person to wear it had a love for coffee & a drooling problem. Our guide (Darell) told us that they smell funky because of the sanitation process. Sadly, I did not take the opportunity to inhale deeply of the fragrance of my rental chin strap. There were several people in tennis shoes. I was in boots - and was glad I had them by days end.
The first part of the tour was the lighted stuff that most folks go on. Some say it's boring, but I thought it was just as interesting as anything else. Let's face it - unless you're going down into a cave filled with unique mineral deposits & stuff like that it's all pretty much the same after the first 2 dozen feet. We descended into the darkness following a brief rendezvous in "The Ballroom". Now we started out on the real cave inspection - and Tom grabbed a few shots of us as we waited for the stragglers to catch up - something we'd be doing most of the afternoon. This is about the only shot of me, Billie, Kris, and Joe The Boneless Rat Boy.
From this point there's not much to tell in terms of chronology, but I will go into the adventure just a bit. We were told we be going down about 470 feet - basically climbing into & out of a 47 story building via the stairs. They were not lying. Most of the descent was fairly straight forward, with only a few sections requiring a slide on the butt or an actual climbing maneuver. Along the way we queried Darell about all kinds of things. He has a day job, but does the cave stuff on the weekends. He said there are days where he makes the same trip twice. In retrospect I can honestly say that there is no way on earth that I could have done the same tour twice in one day.... There were several sections where we had to contort & squeeze through some really tight spaces - at one point I nearly started to freak... but I made it through OK. Only at one place did we have to do any real climbing per se - but it was optional. Tom went first & got pictures of us all doing the belly crawl through one of the tight spots:
We made our way to the "Post Office" fairly clean - but that was were we started to do lots of squeezing & where we all got pretty filthy. We eventually made out way to the "back" of the caverns which was pretty uneventful. Several of us did not bother to climb the dozen or so feet to touch the back wall. In the words of our guide - "Accomplishment is highly overrated". Now that we had made our way in we had to make our way out. Needless to say - it was a long way up. Lots of us started to show our true colors - we were getting tired. We stopped for a rest several time - like here - at several points I had made the mistake of following Billie's nephew Joe. One of those times he vanished into a crack about 4 inches wide - leaving me behind in a small offshoot of the cave. I started yelling for him to find out where the hell he went - and I see this light behind this 4 inch crack & hear him yell - "See my light?". I told Billie we needed to stone him.
As we made our way back up Tom finally spotted some wildlife in the caves - a little "cave cricket" I've named Jiminey.
We also learned the horror of what you had to do if you needed to go to the bathroom. Here is Billie smiling after a particularly grueling session on her knees - note the mud.
We
finally made it back to the Ballroom and plopped in a collective heap.
After a few minutes on our cans we
were too pooped to go very much farther. Please note how filthy we
are - and that Kris is smiling a lot. She did not know it for sure
- but she was sitting here with a severely sprained ankle. I'm sure
that walking on it after the initial injury was really bad - but she didn't
complain at all.
As
we were resting, ome of the stragglers made her way out & was practically
yelling (at no one in particular) "This FU**ING SUCKED. It was boring.
What a bunch of SH*T, BLAHBLAHBLAH". None of us had comment (but
I did think of you Kopa! but not in a bad way!!).
We walked a bit more on the "guided trails" - they had lots of lights
& railings, and we even saw a pool of placid
cave water - which at this point I was ready to hop into.
Those little helmets were basically a plastic slow cooker for the brain.
We oohed & aaaahhed at the repelling wall & the rock climbing
wall - but for the most part we just wanted it to be over. A couple
of us walked up the steps we stumbled up & found ourselves back in
the "lobby" of the building - where we were promptly screamed at &
sent back down the stairs in shame. We learned the error of our ways
& went up the "correct" set of stairs - only to find ourselves less
that 5 feet from where we had been minutes before. Assholes.
I was delighted to find that there were showers at this place - because we were quite the mess. I got some tattooed hippie dude to snap a few photos for us all. This photo does not do justice. I looked like a mud powdered donut. However - I had neglected to bring a towel and clean underwear. At this point I did not care if I had to bathe in a water fountain. My ass felt like I had sat on a box of graham crackers for the last 4 hours. All told - the adventure had taken from about 10:30 to nearly 2:00. We were all tired & hungry - but we had a good time.
We decided t o meet back at Ohiopyle for lunch - and naturally we again succeeded in losing Billie & Craig. We finally caught up with them in town - only to find Kris with her leg up & a bag of ice on her soon-to-be-the-size-of-a-small-grapefruit ankle. We headed up the road a piece to some place that touted "Chicago Style Pizza" - which apparently means pricey & nasty. Remind me to not get pizza next time I'm in Chicago. We ordered pepperoni & mushrooms - the pepo-s weren't bad, but the "mushrooms" were something else. Take a perfectly good fresh mushroom. Place it in a Cuisinart for about 45 seconds. Allow the bits to dry out overnight. Now sprinkle them on your pizza as though they cost as much as gold. Yummy.
We parted company & vowed to meet this Wed. for dinner. We did spend a great deal of time behind common buttwipes on the T-Pike, however. Tom & I cruised back to his house & played on his Sony playstation for about 3 hours. I played "Hot Pursuit" a bit too much - I made it home from Tom's house in just over 7 minutes.............
Sunday
I felt like I had been beaten with a bat...........
....a big thanx to Tom
for the digital photos........
For the "politically sensitive" please read my disclaimer
