Day: October 13, 1997

Breathing Cave
Oct. 13, 1997
by Crystal Shrewsbury

Our small group met at 10:00 behind Burrus. There were six of us in all. We waited around for a while to see if anyone else would show up…no one did. So we climbed into the cars, Rich, Caroline, Katy, and myself, in Rich’s car and Josh and Jeff in Josh’s car. The first stop, WalMart for batteries. Who’s got money asked Rich. I’m broke, was the general response. Fortunately for all Josh broke out the credit card which bought the batteries not to mention the gas. One more stop, Mr. J’s of course. Crystal, wanna buy me a bagel? Rich questioned hopefully. I suppose, was my reply. The next thing I know Rich was passing my money out to all those to whom he owed money and I was about $10.00 poorer when we finally left Mr. J’s. Finally on the road at 11:15 we made our way to Breathing.

Once Rich signed in and we had all of our clothes on we made our way to the cave. The hike was fairly uneventful with the usual race to the top of the hill made by the guys. I?m not really sure who won, I was still at the bottom of the hill when they reached the top. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, we counted off and made our way inside. Halfway through the cave I realized the wonderful paper camera I bought didn’t have a flash making it completely useless in the cave. The trip was going smoothly until we got to the nut cracker. Caroline got stuck halfway through for a few minutes but managed to fight her way through. The rest of us got through quite swiftly until it was Josh?s turn. When he experienced first hand why it was called the nut cracker, he crawled back out and took the wetter alternative. The rest of the trip through the cave went fairly smoothly. Once back at the waterfall we took a break and ate some food. The trip out of the cave was swift and uneventful.

Once to the cars we packed everything up and were ready to head off to the Hall Called d. Rich turned the key and click, click, Shit! Well, the lights still worked. ?Hey Josh, got any jumper cables? Rich and Josh both searched their cars valiantly for non-existent jumper cables. Everything imaginable was tried to start the car. Rich tried banging on the slightly corroded battery caps with an umbrella, didn’t work. Is that a car I hear?…..Nope, airplane. After several minutes and a lot of annoyance at the realization we would never make it to D hall a car came flying down the road. Everyone bravely jumped out into its path and flagged it down. Need a jump? asked our savior. With the cables attached and a turn of the key the car started. We thanked the kind folks who helped us out and back to the burg we went.