We had decided to break the trip into three parts, and boy were we glad after the end of that first leg. We would have lost our minds had we attempted to drive the whole thing at once. Instead, the longest leg was the first five hours, from Birmingham to Marianna, Florida. We spent about four hours in Marianna, first at the Florida Caverns State Park and then for dinner at McDonald's. It was storming when we arrived at the State Park, and it looked like our plans for a hike were not going to work out. But the rain slowed down to a drizzle and Marcus decided to take the boys on a short hike in the rain after all. Then we all spent some time looking at the (indoor) nature exhibits while we waited for our tour of the caverns to begin.
The caverns were pretty cool. I've been to Blanchard Springs Caverns in Arkansas, and on a tour of some huge caverns in southern China, but I think I liked these caves the best. (This may have been because there was such a pronounced difference between the heat outside and the cool interior of the cave.) As we walked down the path into the first cave, Caleb kept exclaiming excitedly, "We're under the ground! We're under the ground!" A few minutes into the tour, he asked us, "So if we are under the ground, what is under us?" The guide answered his question, explaining that there was another cave filled with water underneath. Caleb just grinned a huge grin, and I could see the little wheels in his head turning as he imagined never-ending layers of caves under his feet.
After the cave tour and a quick dinner at McDonald's, we got back on the road around 6:00 pm, this time just 3 1/2 hours from our destination: a friend's house in Gainesville, Florida. More about our trek tomorrow :)
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