Exploring Linville Caverns

Brian planned this wonderful trip as a special occasion celebrating our last weekend before school begins! What a daddy! : )

The story is that in the early 1800s, two fishermen discovered this underground stream and followed it inside the mountain, revealing a beautiful and hidden world. The fish in the stream are all blind, living their lives in total darkness.

Here is a picture of the unpolished gemstone found in the caverns called "cave onyx" or "carnelian," which has an opaque, amber-like appearance. We found some polished in the gift shop and some unpolished in the creek outside.

It's one of the few places on earth where one can experience total darkness: where the eyes will never adjust. (Another place is as the bottom of the ocean.) When we were a half-mile into the cavern and another half-mile under the mountain, they warned us, and then turned off the lights. The girls were prepared and, except for wanting to be held, they did GREAT! : )

Here is a picture of the oldest formation in the cavern, based on the time it takes to create one inch of stalactite, this formation has been growing for sixteen million years!

This trip also cleared up the difference between stalactites and stalagmites for me with a simple idea. Stalactites hang from the ceiling "where they hold on tight" while stalagmites grow from the ground "where they might" reach the ceiling someday.

Here a stalactite and stalagmite have grown together to form a column. Such neat things we learned today! Another cool fact is that defectors from the South during the Civil War hid in these caverns, . . . only to be given away by the smoke from their fires that was seen seeping out of the cracks in the mountain.
But the girls favorite part of the trip? The rock candy! (The tiny pieces of cave onyx and these two candy lollies marked some of the least expensive and special souvenirs I've ever purchased! . . . except for pressed pennies, of course.)