Rap, Raft, Rock; No Roll

Everyone had purple pants, so shut your pie hole
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I've always had an odd shaped head.  It's oblique and egg shaped, making it a target for older siblings to punch, hit, and make fun of.  Well, as time has gone by, people still make fun of it.  This did not change when we signed up for a rappeling, rafting, rock climbing, and spelunking adventure.

There was a group of six of us for this outing and we had to gear up before we started out with the rappel portion of the guided tour.  Unfortunately, none of the standard sized-helmets fit my head, but eventually the tour guide found an old white one (egg shell colored, how appropriate!) that I was able to squeeze on to my oversized melon.  It's no wonder that my mother stop having children when the 9 lb., 6 oz, child came out with a torturous watermelon shaped head.  It must have been horrifying for her and the doctors.  Alright, I'm getting off on a tangent, but stay with me.

We tubed in the river
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We started out by rappeling into an 88 foot chasm that was cut by the river below.  There were the usual ferns, multicolored green mosses, and vines dangling all the way down the rappel.  Once we hit bottom, we headed back into the caves to view "glow worms."  Before we saw the "glow worms", we ran into a few eels that did not seem too eager of our presence.  They blew gravel about the water and made hissing noises to scare us away.  Okay, they didn't hiss, but I'm sure if they could, they would.  We finally came to a portion of the cave where the glow worms lived.  Actually that's kind of a scam.  The "glow worms" are nothing more than fly larvae shit that has been oxidized to give it a star like glow.  I'm not sure of the chemical process that makes this occur, but I'm sure it's fascinating. After gazing at the star-formatted fly crap, we did some extensive spelunking and finished out with a rock climb to the top.

Ah, the big dipper. Or fly poop?
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Goldie lead us back to our campground and we immediately hit the hot tub and followed that up with piping hot showers.  We didn't even take the time to grab soap as we were in the freezing cave water for about 3 hours.

At 4 a.m. the next morning, I woke up with my nose in the middle of my armpit.  The smell could have killed a small billy goat.  Through our haste, I forgot to put on deodorant when I showered that night, paying the price at 4 a.m. in the morning.  Immediately I grabbed some and put it on to cover what smelled like an auditorium filled with Germans.  This did not work as well as I had hoped.  It's kind of like when MNDOT (Minnesota Department of Transportation--and most inefficient organization in the world) continues to patch up a 35 year old road when it clearly should have been resurfaced 20 years earlier.  I know I'm rambling, but it's true.

Note the white boot in the air in front of us. Pitch black, and that person is upsidedown in the water
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