The Cannon Hackett Chronicle: Caveboy Ben

family pic taken by the cavern guide halfway through the tour

Today Ben toured his first cavern and then went on his first "safari" at Natural Bridge Cavern just north of San Antonio. My brother Matt, his wife, Sandy, and her dad came to San Antonio for the day, and (as usual) they had exciting things planned for us.

cavern column

Although not this cavern isn't as amazing as Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, (I think I'm spoiled for life on caves after that) it was really neat to hike through it. It is still a "living cave," so they keep the humidity very high and the walls and ceilings still drip and grow formations (at the rate of about an inch a century!). Visitors take a guided tour down narrow, slanting walkways, often having to duck your head to avoid brushing against rock formations. The tour guide was able to point out old fault lines, ancient piles of bat guano, and showed us how high the water rose in 2005 during a flood (filling most of the cavern).

Ben slept through most of the tour strapped to Clay's back (which was especially good given that the floor was slippery and I clung to the railing for dear life at many points). I had been a bit apprehensive that he would start crying and it would echo terribly around the cavern, but Ben left that job to several toddlers on the tour with us.

After the cavern tour, Matt and Sandy did a climbing ropes course, called the "Canopy Challenge" (see pics below). Regardless of how many harnesses they having keeping one safe, Matt and Sandy are much braver than I am!

Adjoining the cavern is the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch where visitors can drive through the beautiful Texas hill country surrounded by hilly vistas and wild animals (mostly of the antelope, deer & elk variety). Part of the entrance fee is a bag of food to feed the animals, which gets many of the animals to come right up to your car window. Visitors are told to drop the food on the ground near their car and not to feed the animals by hand, but it seemed like everyone ignored that instruction. I did all my animal feeding by dropping or tossing the food (being a big scaredy cat), and because I was also trying to feed Ben his lunch bottle at the time. Once again, poor Ben missed most of the action since he was secured in his carseat, which mostly aims his view out the back window.

waiting for the tour guide to lead us down

Along with the antlered animals, there were also some pretty aggressive ostriches (which pecked at Clay's car mirror), and some overly-friendly zebras (one of which got too cozy with Matt's car-- sticking its head in Matt's car window to get the food bag-- see photo below). Talk about an out-of-the-ordinary wild day!

climbing tower at Natural Bridge Cavern

After this super exciting day, Ben was a bit fussy in the car, so I turned the portrait mode on my phone's camera, and let him watch himself (this almost always makes him stop crying). Today however, instead of just looking at himself, he repeatedly managed to press the camera trigger, so he has now taken several self portraits (I've included one of them below). I always wonder what he is thinking when he looks in the mirror and smiles or laughs.