Today is our first day of local adventuring. We have 2 no-travel days scheduled along our route to Colorado. There’s so much to see along our way, but we really do want to get to Boulder!

In the morning we ventured down the road to go kayaking in an old limestone mine. The cool thing about this trip is that the kayaks are clear plastic and have lights on the bottom. There are also lights in places under the water. It’s very cool – and very cool – 50^o in the mine with 38^o water. We had a small group of about 6 kayaks and 2 guides. The limestone was mined for almost 100 years, until they hit an aquifer and the mine flooded. There was no way to pump the water out, so the mine was abandoned. Now there is a thriving business of Kayak and stand-up paddle board tours – we were told that tours will almost always sell out.

One of our tour guides took pictures as well, and we opted to purchase those (much cheaper than the Disney pictures!).

After lunch we ventured to higher ground. The Natural Bridge is a sandstone arch that spans more than 78 feet and is 65 feet high. It was a very warm day, but we had a nice hike up to the base of the arch, then around to the back and up to the top. It’s quite impressive to walk along the top of the arch. There are no railings, and I couldn’t bring myself to get very close to the edge. We continued to walk along the ridge to a couple of other lookouts, then down some pretty steep slopes to get back to the base.

We finished out the day with a nice campfire and more whip-poor-wills.