Marvel Cave

This morning we slept a little later and moved a little slower, so we didn't get to our last day at Silver Dollar City until 10:45. Apparently everyone else was also running late, because this was the line for the tram! Jacob, Sarah, and Dylan are at the right.

One of the first things we did was take the 1-hour Marvel Cave tour while our feet and knees were still fresh. We joined the noon tour.

This is a view of the route we followed through the cave. It was a little daunting: we would be 500+ feet underground and have to descend and ascend more than 600 stair steps over a half-mile distance, before riding a mine train out. Oh, my aching knees! But Sarah has a thing for caves, and I was quite the spelunker in my college days, so Jacob and Dylan swallowed their misgivings and joined us.
This is a look back at the tower high above us that we descended after entering the cave, and the steeply slanted path that led us down the first 300 feet.

After leaving the big chamber, many flights of steep downward steps in smaller tunnels followed.

Some of the passages were pretty small. Dylan--the shortest and smallest of us at 5'3" and 106 lbs--really had to duck to squeeze through this opening.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but this was a beautiful waterfall. I thought the cave would be dried out after being open to the public for more than 110 years, but it is still a living cave (also known as a wet cave), meaning its features are still growing and developing.

Dylan and I took a breather at the bottom of the cave before starting back up the "huff-n-puff" stairway. Believe me, I was huffin' and puffin'! This place was at the Mystic River Passage (the description is in the next picture).

Marvel Cave was a popular tour site way back in the late 1800s. When it changed ownership in 1950, a small Old West town was built around it, and guests were given a stamped silver dollar as a souvenir. By 1960 people were coming to see the old town instead of the cave, so Silver Dollar City was born. But it all started with Marvel Cave.

This is a beautiful example of flowstone commonly called "cave bacon" because it looks like huge, hanging slabs of bacon!

I've been in many Arizona caves with richer formations than the ones we saw along this tour, but Marvel Cave did have its share of amazing features. We all agreed the cave tour was a highlight of our trip and well worth the effort!

At the end of the tour we 60 tourists boarded this slanted mine train to carry us out of the cave and back into the warm humidity.

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Well, make that 57 tourists. As soon as we entered the first opening and started down the tower, one little boy panicked and hysterically begged his parents not to make him go down in that spooky black hole. They tried to reassure him, but he wasn't buying it and they had to go back. Poor little guy.

After we left the cave, we went to Grandfather's Mansion, a crazily tilted house that plays with your perceptions. It's just like Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA, which my family toured when I was a teenager back in the late 1960s. You feel like you're being dragged to one side by tremendous gravitational pull and you can't seem to stand up straight. Very disorienting!

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Here's Dylan actually standing straight on the edge of a bench. It's the room that's slanted, but it sure doesn't feel that way.

Dylan and Jacob try to make their way across this crazy room!

At 2:00 we had an early dinner at Aunt Polly's Restaurant. The fried chicken and mashed potatoes were delicious. Jacob enjoyed his catfish nuggets, too.

Here are Sarah and Dylan at the end of their ride on Fire in the Hole. Lots of drops in the dark and a big splash at the end.

The kids rode American Plunge again, and I love this shot I got of them from the "Review Stand" at the end. It's way better than the one they tried to sell us for a ridiculous amount of money. I may have this one blown up and framed!

One of the big things at the food booths was skillet cookery, featuring potatoes and a wide variety of vegetables and meats. I really wanted to try some, but it was too expensive. Nonetheless, I still had to take a picture of this giant skillet. Without a doubt the biggest skillet I have ever seen!

One thing I did have to try at the end of the day was a funnel cake. The lady at the booth was amazed that we'd never tasted one before, but I explained that we're from Arizona and they aren't very common there. (On the other hand, there were no chimichangas or Mexican food of any kind to be found in all of Silver Dollar City!)

In fact, I'd never even heard of a funnel cake until a few years ago when iHop began advertising them. We bought two, one cherry and one peach, and shared them. They were good, but perhaps a little too much on the sweet side for my tastes.

This time we actually closed down the park, among the last to leave as we searched for souvenirs to remind us of this fun experience after we return home. Farewell, Silver Dollar City!