Maquoketa Caves

                   Sam had a four-day-weekend over the Easter holiday.  Our friends, also a Palmer family, invited us to join them on their trip to Maquoketa Caves, IA and Galena, IL with them.  Looking back, maybe we should have looked up the trail or map of the caves. However, we were going just for a fun day, nothing too serious, so we didn't. Our friends knew how to get to the caves and once we got there we just explored.  

                 One of the first signs we saw said "Caves are closed during bat hibernation."  So immediately I was checking the sky and ceiling of the cave for bats!  Sam kept gasping and grabbing my arm like he saw a bat.  He thought it was very funny but I repaid him with a punch in the arm! Luckily there were no bats that we saw!

 

This is the first cave we spelunked. You can see that it is pretty low.  We all had to crouch down but not quite to crawling, except Marlee.  She walked through it, no problem!  The one time being 2' 6" comes in handy!  Our friends are Wendy, Cameron and Alexa's in the backpack :)  

That little tunnel opened up to this area.  It was really pretty to see the sun shining down into the cave.  The camera just wasn't able to capture it fully.

The next cave was called the dance hall.  As you can imagine it opened up into a big room.  We let Marlee get down to dance and she loved it.  I love that cute smile!

Mamma and Marlee "dancin' in the dance hall."

Next stop on our trip was Galena, Illinois.  It reminded me of West Yellowstone with fun shops up and down the street. It is also where Ulysses S. Grant's after-the-civil-war-and-before-he-was-president home is located. 

I like Marlee's chubby cheeks in this photo :)  

At the end of our trip we had dinner at Olive Garden.  Sam just couldn't resist giving Marz a taste of the lemon.  She puckered her cheeks at first, then actually didn't mind it too much.