Friday, August 19, 2005

Mammoth Cave Kentucky

This is a little bit of summer that reminds us of how dear our friendships with parents are. Memories of times spent with families is so important to a small school. These pictures are of Mammoth Cave in Southern Kentucky. Our school makes this trip every year to tour the cave. I just got these pictures, so I'm sharing some of them with you now.


The tour begins on a bus. Suddenly we are in the dark.



The cave is really quite beautiful. It's well lit if you keep up with the group. A Ranger goes ahead of the line and one is there at the rear to guard against anyone staying in the cave. Without light, it would be a total blackness that would confound the most adventurous.


Susie found she is claustrophobic when we first got into the cave, so going down, down, down, the 350 steps twisting and turning into what is the bowels of the earth was a really hard thing for her to do. But she did it and she is here today to share these pictures.


This was our group. The Ranger was really funny and answered a lot of our children's questions. I think he was a little impatient at first with such a large group of kids. When our kids asked better questions than the whole of the adult audience, he got a big smile on his face and settled down to answer the children with serious and in depth answers.




We had a marvelous time in the cave. It's exciting, new, interesting, and COOOOOL. The one thing we all missed inside the cave was the wonderful lush greenery of the KY wilderness. It's a grand place, but I wouldn't want to cave dwell - neither would the kids, except for Morgan - upper right. She actually said to the Ranger, "Miss Judy said I could stay here tonight. Would you leave the lights on?" He growled at her and she laughed at him. Morgan is a trip.



Friendships reunite after a school year other places. The Garden School often has returnees in the summer, and we welcome them back. Children are eager and willing to remember friends and re-establish friendships for years to come because GS is an inclusive place to be. The young man in the picture, Holden, has a brother Ben who comes every summer to help out. He's a high school student, and has been with us since he was four.


Here's part of the Group at Mammoth Cave this summer. It was a great trip.


This is a picture of Hadley and Mayli. Friendships are so important especially to girls. This year, these girls are in Miss Rachel's class. There are so few girls this year that all the girls have bonded into one big group.

More pictures to follow!

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