From Inks Lake to Longhorn Caverns

One of the things I wanted to do on this trip (besides hike and take LOTS of pictures while doing that) was to make a trip to Longhorn Cavern State Park.  I LOVE going into caves AND I really wanted to try out the hand-held low light feature on the camera.  Here are the results!

The stairs leading to the gated entrance, the gate, and the hole in the Earth that help create the caverns.

The beautiful flow stone and draperies.

The size of these crystals tell us that this portion of the cavern was under water for a VERY long time!

This depression was in the ceiling - but it shows where there was an "eddy" of water carving the rock.

 This "Guard Dog" was actually found further back in the caverns and moved here.  Our guide called him a "Rockweiler" !!!

 This is one of the main rooms.  They still have dances and weddings here.  The picture can't really show how large this room was.

 This tiny bat isn't much bigger than a finger.  They find places to hibernate inside the cave during the cool months.

Some more cave formations like "soda straws", more flow stone, some "curtains", and stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.

The next couple of pictures show where the underground river flowed and cut away the stone.  Again, these don't really show how massively LARGE this area is! It also amazed me how smooth the stone was where the water had worn it down.

Frog-leg formation and Lincoln's profile.

The next two pictures show what the still water does to the rock.  The first is just full of "pits" while the second shows how HUGE the crystals got because they were under still water for so long they just continued to grow and grow and grow!

We had an amazing time and it was an enjoyable tour.  The only problem for me is that you have to go on the tour - and that means you have to keep moving - which means you can't stand around and take as many pictures as you would like.  All in all though it was pretty amazing!