Squire Boone Caverns

On Thursday, Shawn and I drove over to Corydon/Louisville for a little overnight getaway.  One of the places we went to was Squire Boone Caverns and trying to find it was a whole different story!  Shawn wanted to go to Marengo Caves, but I remembered that SBC was near and I had went as a child, so I wanted to go back again.  And because I had already been before, I didn't bother looking up and reading any reviews as to what might be expected.  Now I realize I should have. 

The cave was nice and interesting, but it's a short cave, and because of a rock fall in quite a few years ago, you can't go all the way through the cave.  At the midpoint you have to turn around and come back out of the cave.  You enter the cave through the gift shop and have to descend down 72 steps - on a steep, metal, spiral staircase in the dark, wet cave.  It was slippery and after going down in circles for so long, everything starts looking weird!  I finally made it to the bottom, with about 25 people behind me and waiting on me to get down to the bottom (Shawn wanted to be near the tour guide, which is why we were the first ones in the cave.) By the time I got to the bottom, my legs felt like jello and I was wobbling around the cave, taking each step very careful, especially since it's dark and wet and a little slippery inside the cave.  The temperature outside that day was about 101 degrees, however inside the cave, the temps are 58 degrees year round.  It's sad to say that I did not need the jacket I was carrying because I was sweating the entire time we were in the cave. 

 I had already told Shawn that when it was time to leave the cave, and start the climb up the 72 steep, metal, slippery steps in the cold, dark cave, that I wanted to be at the end of the line cause I knew it would take me a while to climb them.  Guess who was at the front of the line climbing those steps?  Yep, me!  I could of killed him!  The first few weren't so bad, then it started getting harder and harder for me, I couldn't hardly breathe, I couldn't see.  I just kept looking up to see if I could see the end in sight.  I couldn't really stop and breathe either because I had 25 people behind me who were climbing the steps too.  By the time we reached the top and exited into the gift shop, I literally thought I was going to croak!  I was gasping for air and just wanted to lay on the floor.  The gift shop didn't have a water fountain and we didn't have any cash to buy a drink.  I finally told Shawn that I was going to go to the car and sit in the air.  He wanted to look around at the rest of the stuff; needless to say, he did that by himself.  One thing we did do before leaving the gift shop though was get a smashed penny from the smashed penny machine for my collection :)

By the time I waddled to the car and started cooling off, I was done with that place and just wanted to get to the hotel, put on my swimsuit and relax in the pool!!  Which is exactly what we did!

(And I later found out that my thigh muscles would hurt for about 4 days after all the climbing I did too!)

Here is a before and after of me at the cave:

BEFORE

And AFTER: