Cave Diving in Great Basin National Park

When we parked the RV last night, we backed up to a back yard with three dogs. Before you could say lickity split, a lady in the back yard starting asking if Daisy spent the night outside. No, we said. Good she said. I was thinking it would disturb her dogs and that's why she was concerned. But she went on. There's a skunk between 3 and 4 am and we were to be sure not to let Daisy meet her. With all that fur, we would never get the smell out. We would hear one of her dogs barking if the skunk came. Well, Miss Dodie confirmed that the dog was barking at 3:45, right on schedule. Boy, I surely don't want to meet a skunk either.

We arose at the crack of dawn this morning. off to see the Great Basin National Park and Zion, two parks in one day. First we bought groceries so we could survive in the wild. Mostly Dodie cooks, except when it's time to grill, and then Margaret and Daisy cook. They are both pretty good cooks; I think I have put on a few lubs.

Well, I digress. Great Basin National Park is just southeast of Ely, 66 miles to be exact. It is one of the nation's least visited National Parks. It's big attraction is the Lehman Caves. We took a tour with Ranger Jessica. She's the ranger in the photo, and she's studying theatre. The cave was 50 degrees, a nice cool place on a summer's day. We learned about stalagmites, stalagtites, soda straws, bacon, wedding cake, ribbon candy, drapes, shields, and all sorts of other wierd formations. People used to spend the night in the cave, get married in the cave, and have secret meetings in the cave. The cave is named for the man who discovered it in the 1860's. He used to charge $1 to go into the cave; that was about a days wages back then. With the entry to the cave, you got one candle to explore by. Unfortunately, he also allowed visitors to take anything that fit in their pockets, so many formations have been broken. The cave is about 4 million years old. It takes that long for the formations to grow, maybe an inch every hundred years.

The second attraction of the cave are the overlooks up to 13,000 feet of Mount Wheeler. We took the RV up to 9500 feet for lunch and photos. Just as we were chopping lettuce, the wind began to gust and the RV swayed and shook. It was freaky. We decided to pack up the lunch and get down before we were never seen again.

The rest of the day was long and straight. We drove for hours to Zion. The only changes in the scenery were the small mountain ranges that ripple across Nevada like ribs. Most summit at 6500 feet or so. Did you know Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state?

Around 5 pm Mountain Time (I changed time zones, you see) we crossed into Utah and started our approach to Zion. Zion is so cool, that's another blog in itself. See ya soon!