Richard Casady wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:19:38 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

On Mar 18, 11:19 am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:
I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?
If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.
Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.
Richard:
Are you a caver? Do you go to the TAG party in October? If so, we
should meet there.
Am a long time caver. Now my kids are cavers and my 12 yr old
daughter pesters me every day about "When can we go caving again".
She looks over every bit of land we go near trying to decide if it is
"cavish". My 23 yr old daughter has been going to TAG and to local
caver meetings for a couple of years too.
My days of "hard core" caving are past but I still do easier trips.

Not a caver, but I have been far enough into one, on a 100 degree day,
to really really enjoy the 55 F. This was before factory air in cars.
There was a limestone formation that was almost pure Crinoid stem
fragments. They sold sawn blocks of it for bookends.

I read about three brothers from Iowa in a magazine. I guess caves are
mostly flooded in Florida, but, in any case, the three of them swam
into a cave until they had used more than half their air. They had a
camera and were taking pictures after it was already too late to make
it to the entrance. Their first cave dive. Any fool can figure air is
like air combat fuel. 1/4 to get there, 1/4 to party, 1/4, to get
home. That leaves 1/4 for contingencies. Something like that.

I saw in the paper, I think it was, that some kid had found his very
own narrow place in a cave, and gotten wedged. They were using power
tools to get him out. The one thing the kid did right was to be in a
group.

There is a museum in Chicago that has a coal mine underneath. You just
take an elevator, same as any shaft mine. It isn't a cave, but there
is lots of rock over your head. Museum of Science and Industry. The
place with the Stuka and the U-boat.

Casady



I went into a couple of coal mines when I worked for The AP. It was
damned scary being down under all that rock. I did not get the same
feelings of fear in the natural caves tourists like me visit near the
Shenandoah River.


--
The morality police - the bloviating gas bags of the religious right -
have fallen lower than the stock market. It has truly been an amazing
(and amusing) thing to watch these so-called "spokesmen of Christ"
defending their morally indefensible positions these days. Finally -
they're going away. It seems an answer to a prayer. Thank you, Lord.