Our most recent excursion was on Monday. We went to Florida Caverns State Park. As with most parks, there is a lot of land for camping, hiking, and horse-back riding as well as designated river space for canoeing. We didn’t do any of that though, we just went on the 45-minute cave tour. The park is about an hour away so it was a long way to go for not much to do but Maya really wanted to get out and do something. We’ll likely go back for canoeing sometime. Sadly, it was not the most impressive cave ever, but as Maya said, “I’ve seen a lot of caves.” Our tour group was just us and two other couples so it was a nice, intimate trip through the cave. When we came out, the next group waiting to go in had several young, loud, chattery children. Not that children aren’t great, but they do tend to put a damper on adult appreciation of things. Also, our camera works great! All these shots are taken without flash, just using the “ambient” light of the lamps in the cave.
The cave was first developed for visitors in the 1930s as part of the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps. They were the first to plumb its depths and hack out the path through it. They did it all with oil lamps, pick axes, and 5-gallon buckets for $1 a day. That got Matt thinking (after remembering garden design aesthetics – see last post) about the design of caves. Most caves tours take people on relatively flat paths through the rooms with tight but not unreasonably small doorways between. They also have “squeezes” and places where one must stoop, or duck walk for 20 feet. When a cave is first found the whole thing is that way. There is no path through, the whole floor is covered in stalactites. What aesthetics or whims drive the design of where the floor is hacked away to allow people to walk upright and where it is left low? Why leave any “squeezes” at all? I wonder if these underground aesthetics have changed over time.
The cave was first developed for visitors in the 1930s as part of the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps. They were the first to plumb its depths and hack out the path through it. They did it all with oil lamps, pick axes, and 5-gallon buckets for $1 a day. That got Matt thinking (after remembering garden design aesthetics – see last post) about the design of caves. Most caves tours take people on relatively flat paths through the rooms with tight but not unreasonably small doorways between. They also have “squeezes” and places where one must stoop, or duck walk for 20 feet. When a cave is first found the whole thing is that way. There is no path through, the whole floor is covered in stalactites. What aesthetics or whims drive the design of where the floor is hacked away to allow people to walk upright and where it is left low? Why leave any “squeezes” at all? I wonder if these underground aesthetics have changed over time.
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