Heyy everyone.

What’s going on? I’m typing this letter tonight, but the internet is being lameee and it’s not letting me connect so you all are getting this a day late. Sorry about that.

Today was pretty cool. We got a wakeup call at 6, but me being me, I don’t get up until an hour later. Yeah. I’m pretty cool. We went to this run down old place for breakfast, but it was possibly one of the greatest breakfasts that I have ever had. After breakfast, we went to this place called Desoto Caverns, which is an active cave and it also have a few attractions. [Yes, I realize that I said that we were going to head up to Mammoth Caves, but we’re going slowly. As my dad says, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.] It was privately owned and REALLY nice. We got there right after it opened and we were in the first tour that went in the cave. It was only me, my mom, my dad and this mom [or grandma] with 4 kids. The cavern was AMAZING. There were a lot of formations, and at one point, it was an Indian burial ground, it was sacred, it was used in the civil war to make gun powder, and the one that made us all laugh [well, the ones old enough to get it] was that during the prohibition of alcohol, it was used to make moonshine, but since the entrance to the cave was 40 feet steep, they couldn’t get the moonshine out of the cave, so they decided that since they couldn’t bring the moonshine to the people, the decided that they would bring the people to the moonshine. Yes. They made a cave into a tavern. Granted it only lasted about 6 weeks, and it destroyed some of the stalagmites, but you have to give them credit. It’s pretty inventive. =]

After we did that, we drove for a little bit and tried to find brochures. We couldn’t seem to find ANY. It was really weird. My mom was looking at a map and found this place called Cathedral Caverns, but we couldn’t find any advertisement for it.

Anecdote: While we [meaning my dad] were driving [dad=behind the wheel, me=shotgun + mom=backseat, yes, I have shotgun. =)] my mom was looking for her peanuts, and she asked me if they were in the front seat, but instead of saying peanuts, the conversation went something like this:

Mom: Micah,

Me: Yes, mom?

Mom: Are my penis—I mean peanuts up there?

Me: [laughing] No, mom. Your penises aren’t up here. Do you see them dad?

Dad: Why no Micah, I don’t see her penises anywhere, although I wasn’t aware she had one.

Me: Neither was I. Is there something you should tell us mom?

Mom: No honey, there is nothing I have to tell you other then the fact that I can’t find my

peanuts.

We made fun of my mom for the rest of the day. Most likely it will be a trip thing. =] Mwhahahahaha.

We decided to stop at subway for lunch and figure out a game plan. We planned to keep driving toward the Cathedral Caverns banking on seeing advertisement or signs and following them. We did that, and we kept driving until we found small government signs telling us where to go. We drove through this small town to get to the caverns called Grant. It was home of the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] school. I don’t know that much about it, but I’m planning on researching it when I can get internet access.

When we got to the Caverns, we got there at 3:45, just in time, [really 15 minutes early] for the last tour. We [me, my mom and my dad] discovered that the first and last tours are the best, because those are the smallest. It was only us and the tour guide. Since we were not only a small group, but we were the last group, our tour guide took us on a golf cart in the cave instead of walking. It was nice, since the cave was big as well as active. In caves, you’re perception of things is different. Things that seem close to you are actually far apart. The reason for that is because you have nothing to compare it with when you’re in a cave underground. The cavern was AMAZING! I learned too much about it to tell you all about it, but it holds 4 world records. The largest cave entrance is the only one I remember clearly. I was way too fascinated. You should Google it or something and read about it. Look at pictures too, although I highly doubt it’ll do it justice. It’s like the great wall. It’s hard to experience it by just looking at pictures. You have to really be there to understand how amazing it is. Our tour guide was a fan of Zoolander, so we had some fun quoting the movie.

Oh, one more thing about caves. There are only three places in the universe that you can experience total darkness and that is 1. Space; 2. The ocean [deep, like challenger deep, (that’s the deepest point in the ocean, for those of you that don’t know)] and 3. Caves. Being in total darkness is scary. If you stay like that for longer than 2 weeks, you’ll go blind. It’s weird. It feels like you’re totally and completely alone. It’s a neat experience, but I don’t recommend seeing the movie The Descent. It made me a little frightened to be in total darkness. It was really neat too, because in the total darkness in the second cave, we got to yell as loud as we could and hear it echo though three rooms, all of which were huge. That was really good, because I got to let out a lot of pent up emotions without telling anyone. It felt good.

After we did that, we drove onto Huntsville where I saw the NASA space center, which we will be visiting tomorrow. =] I’m happy about that. Space is really fascinating. [I just realized how dorky and geeky I sound. I’m e-mailing you all about caves and the space center and how cool it all is] but that’s ok. I love it. When I was in elementary school and we were living in my old house [yay Seville!] I got a book from the school library and I kept checking it out. I think I had it out for over a month. At one point, when I first checked out the book, I wanted to stay up all night looking at the stars. I had a towel out and was all set up, and I was out there at 9 at night in the driveway and after a little bit [my mom was in the garage] my mom told me that I had to go in. I was disappointed, but I went inside. And then, when we had the open house out in Oak Ford. A few of my friends and I sat outside at night and just looked up at the stars. That’s one of the reasons why I love living in the middle of nowhere. Whenever I’m in town and I only see 2 to 5 stars, I always say “That’s why I love living out in the country. You can actually see the stars.” It’s funny too, because a lot of you will hear me complaining about how far out I live, which is why I’m over at my aunts a lot.

We’ll, I’ve typed a lot tonight. Wow. I’m tired, so I’m gonna go to bed and e-mail this is in the morning or tomorrow night. I don’t guarantee that it’s going to be colorful though. I don’t think I’m gonna be on for long. [I’m typing this in Microsoft Word right now] But within the next few e-mail’s one will be colorful.

<3

Micah