BLUERIDGE TRIP Pt. 2

     Hey! Since I'm assuming you're reading all of these blog posts at once, let's ski[ the introduction and get straight into the action! 

    On the morning of Monday, March 10th, the gang had woken up egregiously early in order to get a head start on the day's adventures, which almost felt like we overestimated how much we would be able to do in just one day. Regardless, after piling into a few cars, we had driven 90 minutes across state borders to reach Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our first stop on the agenda was a place called Ruby Falls, which was a guided cave system tour that would conclude with a beautiful underground waterfall.

    I've never really considered myself particularly claustrophobic, but I must admit, there was something about having my ears pop from the pressure change as our elevator dropped us deep within the earth, revealing how far we were from the open sky, that unnerved me a little bit. What's more, it REALLY didn't help my nerves when, as we waited for our turn to use the elevator, the doors opened to reveal an emergency medic crew wheeling out someone on a stretcher, apparently having broken a bone or something while on the tour. Regardless, perhaps against my better judgement, we ventured deep into the caves and continued making jokes about the occasional rock formation that looked funny. 

    My personal favorite was this rock that was labelled fish. Our tour group had stopped for a while to let another group pass by us in the narrow tunnels, and during this pause, I was able to really look around and observe the formations. After about three minutes of standing still, I said "Oh my god, I just saw the fish," which was apparently such a stupid comment that this older lady ahead of us in the tour group started cackling and laughing uncontrollably. While at first we thought it was funny that she was laughing at my comment, it slowly became concerning as she just kept laughing. Even though it was a little uncomfortable to hear an old, wicked witch laugh echoing through the cavern, it was pretty nice knowing that at least I made someone laugh...

    If I'm being honest, the waterfall at the end of the tour was pretty underwhelming. The lead-up to the waterfall was pretty dramatic, with the tour guide leading us into this massive, pitch black cave blindly, only for elegant music to play over the speakers as a colored light revealed a massive waterfall right in front of us. I'll give them points for presentation, but after a few minutes of staring at water fall from the sky with a spotlight on it, my awe wore away quickly. My mood worsened even more when I approached the older woman who had laughed at my fish comment earlier, asking her to take a picture of my friends and I in front of the waterfall. To my surprise, she completely ignored me. What an ungrateful fan! I'm sure she was just stunned... We did get a photo taken by someone else, but the lighting was so atrocious that I'd rather just share the picture of the waterfall I took. Let me know if you think that view is worth walking in a cramped cave for an hour...

    After escaping the dank depths of the cave, we all agreed we needed to get some fresh air. So, after driving for another hour amongst the rolling hills and mountains of Chattanooga, we found a spot that Evan went hiking at with his dad a few years ago. Leading us off of the beaten trail, we soon began to hear the familiar bubbling of a creek, which actually made its way all the way to a cliffside, forming a small waterfall. As someone who isn't particularly fond of heights, seeing my friends step carelessly on the ledge of the cliff probably made my blood pressure spike a few dozen times from the anxiety, but I eventually convinced them to get a little further away from the edge so I would join them for some pictures. Honestly, the pictures don't do the view justice- it was so beautiful and tranquil, and it made me feel really happy to be traveling and hiking with some of my closest friends :)

    There's only so much time you can spend outside, however, before people start yearning for the comforts of civilization once again. After an hour or two of staring off into the distance and getting bitten by mosquitoes, we made one last stop before returning to the cabin: the actual city of Chattanooga! Once there, however, most of the group wanted to cross this massive pedestrian bridge and explore a park there. Having just arrived from hiking for a few hours, though, I wasn't super excited to keep walking and looking at a park, which would feel pathetic after witnessing the grandness of the cliffside view we just saw.

     So, I decided to split off from the main group with my friend Jase, and we had a blast going on our own little side adventure. First, we sat on a bench on the bridge and talked for like twenty minutes, enjoying the view and the sunset as pedestrians passed by us, giving us little snippets of conversations for us to overhear and wonder about. After a while, we got up and stopped by a local ice cream store to pick up some cones. Then, spontaneously, we decided to exercise our free will and entered a random fancy hotel, took the elevator to the private rooftop bar, and enjoyed the sunset and ice cream from our fancy hotel view.

    Tuesday was spent as mostly a rest day, since the majority of us had stayed up late on Monday night partying, watching movies, and playing party games like Mario Kart and Golden Tee in the basement. We did visit the town again, but we had woken up so late that by the time we got to the town, there were only three stores that hadn't closed yet. Still, this wasn't a wasted day. Me and a few friends visited an exotic tea and spice store, where I was able to try some genuine freshly made chai! Beyond that, though, not much else happened, since we went to sleep early for the next day's adventures...

    On Wednesday, we had agreed to make the 90 minute drive to Sweetwater, Tennessee to explore the Lost Sea Adventure, which was another cave guide experience that promised not just a waterfall, but an entire underground lake that we could sail through. By this point, you might think that we all have a cave diving fascination, but I promise you, there just isn't much to do in this part of the country besides sticking your head in strange holes in the ground. 

    Anyways, this cave was much cooler than the previous one. Instead of taking an elevator into the depths of the earth, we went through a bright yellow tunnel that went straight into the heart of a mountain, meaning there wasn't much of a change in elevation (at least, at first). After leaving the tunnel, the room opened up to a massive cavern- and I mean massive. It felt like an entire society could live within the walls of this cave, and our tour guide mentioned to us that this was, in fact, the case.

     One of my favorite fun facts that I learned during this tour was that when the cave was first discovered, a few rednecks had tried to make a bar in the depths of the cave, calling it the Cavern Tavern (which is an amazing name). However, apparently alcohol intoxication is dependent on atmospheric pressure, meaning that the deeper you go, the higher your tolerance is. This meant that every redneck that went down there to drink felt like they were getting scammed, but as soon as they started to ascend to leave the cave... Uh oh. The atmospheric change would reverse, meaning that the effects of any drinking they did in the cave would abruptly hit them as they left, leaving every person who tried escaping the Cavern Tavern hopelessly drunk beyond their wildest limits. Unfortunately, the tour guide didn't let us recreate this experiment...

    After passing by the ruins of the infamous Cavern Tavern, our group made our way even further into the cave, towards the Lost Sea that was marketed as the main attraction of this cave. Unsurprisingly, this was probably the coolest thing we did that day, since the sheer size of the underground lake and the oppressive darkness of the cave made it look like an endless ocean at night. We loaded into a tiny boat, and apparently it was the first time our boat operator was driving a boat on his own. He looked sixteen years old. Well, if I was going to die anywhere, I guess an underground lake is a pretty cool way to go. As our dinghy drifted away from the dock and into the lake, we got to see some cave fish approach the boat, and we were treated to a nice explanation on stalactites and stalagmites (don't ask me to repeat any of the information, it went through one ear and out the other...)

    Finally, once we returned to shore and made our way back up to the exit of the cave, we stopped to have lunch at a gazebo. By the time we got back to the cabin, we all were tired and hungry again, so we all collaborated to prepare dinner for ten people. Beyond that, not much else happened that night except for another campfire session, so I'll leave the rest of the trip for the next blog post, since I like how this blog mostly focused on our caving trips. Sue me for stretching out this trip into three blog posts, but I just really enjoyed myself and want to talk about it as much as I can :)