Ruby Falls with Auntie K

Zoë writes: 

My favourite part of Ruby Falls was finally getting to the falls. The falls were beautiful, even more so because of the lights and music put on.

Jayden, our tour guide was very funny. He heard us talking to Phoebe—Miriam said that cave monsters weren't real, Ben said that they were. He came over and said to Phoebe, "Oh, the cave monsters only get 3 or 4 people a month." Phoebe, of course, was terrified!

But Mom told her that the tour guides joked a lot, so she thought that he was joking...until Ben told her that he wasn't. 

Mom interjects:

Phoebe was also worried because there are certain points in the walk to the waterfall where we had to pull to one side to allow a returning tour room on the trail to exit the cave. At one such point, the tour guide quipped that he was sure glad to see us because they'd been lost down in the depths for the last two weeks. 

Two weeks?! She was told this was a day trip and wasn't sure she wanted to be in a cave for two weeks...

Another time she got frightened was when the tour guide was 100% serious and telling us about the flow of the waterfall. When they go through dry spells, the waterfall can be nothing more than a trickle. During rainy seasons it can be somewhat enthusiastic. He mentioned that they had a few days of steady rain and the cavern the falls were in actually flooded up to his ankles. 

At the mere mention of a flood, Phoebe yelped and hopped up into my arms. 

He apologized for scaring her. 

And then told everyone that during Hurricane Helene the cavern flooded with seven feet of water, holding his hand above his head to mark the level. 

Phoebe was both impressed and petrified. 

Zoë continues:

I learned that the guy who discovered Ruby Falls didn't tell his wife Ruby that he was down under Lookout Mountain until she asked a guy on Leo's team (Leo was Ruby's husband and the discoverer of Ruby Falls) where he was because he had been missing for 10 hours. When Ruby heard that he was down deep in the mountain, she ran home and got his best clothes, and ran back. She was preparing for a funeral!

When he got out, she wanted to thrash him. He only told her that he was naming the waterfall after her when she was standing next to him, looking at it. 

Auntie K took this picture of Zoë, but most of the time Zoë had her phone

I took a lot of pictures of stalactites and stalagmites for Auntie K so that she can post them. 

The cave had no bathrooms, but it had benches and fire extinguishers and power outlets. 

All in all, Ruby Falls was a very, very fun trip.

Mom interjects:

When we used the last-stop toilet before entering the cave, I explained to Phoebe that there would be no available place to go potty inside the cave, and that we couldn't leave the tour in the middle to go find one or anything because...one simply didn't exist. 

"So you don't even need to ask to go potty," I told her. "Because there is no where to go. You'll just have to hold it and we'll use the potty the very first thing when we come back up out of the cave."

"Got it," she said seriously (she took everything about the cave seriously). 

When we got to the falls, she said proudly, "I did a good job of not even asking to go potty!"

"You did!" I said. "But we're only halfway through our hike. We still have to hike back to the opening..."

"Oh!" she said. "I didn't know that! Restart!"

And so we restarted her "no asking about the potty" clock. And she did great!

In fact, the only person who asked to stop the car for a potty break the entire trip to Tennessee (and back) was Zoë!

Alexander says:

My favourite part of Ruby Falls was the tour guide. Right as we convinced Phoebe that cave monsters were not a thing he said, "Oh, the cave monsters? They only take 3–4 kids a month," and I just think that made things worse by a lot on a scale of 1 to 10 I think it is a 11/10. 

But I liked it. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say 20/10.

And I am glad that we chose the group that we did (the 2:00 group) 'cause they could be much bigger, which I would not have liked at all. But I did like the actual falls bit of it because I liked the music and light show for the falls and I also liked looking through the binoculars without paying on Lookout Mountain. It was weird—for like a second I thought I was dreaming, so I checked. Ben saw through, too, so I knew I was not dreaming. I only saw the sky, but Ben could see the lake [the Tennessee River], probably because he is taller than me and to look up...the place where you look is lower. But if you look down it is higher. 

And I learned that [man who discovered] the place had to crawl on his belly with a few people for 6 hours—no more, no less—and that Ruby, his wife, was preparing for a funeral, but he came back a few hours later and Ruby and him a couple days later went to the falls and it was not until they were there together that he was going to name it Ruby Falls. (They bought Lookout Mountain first before they did anything because basically if you buy the land, if there is a cave you also own the cave). And he did not tell Ruby. Workers just came to his house and said, "Hey, we found an opening. Do you want to go in?" So he went. 

So Ruby found the construction site—or should I say mining site, to be egsact [exact]. So that is when the workers told her, so she got his best clothes because she thought he was dead. That is why she was preparing for a funeral, but he was not dead lukuly [luckily].

And I liked the funny formations like potato chips and bacon and steak and potatoes—a good rocky meal for a hungry person.

Mom adds:

Alexander was determined to fill his notebook with his thoughts on Ruby Falls. He made it through seven pages...which was quite the marathon writing session for him. I think he was a little afraid in the cave and needed a bit more comfort than I was able to give him with Phoebe clinging to me. Auntie K had her walking sticks so couldn't hold his hand, Zoë was busy taking pictures, and for some reason he didn't particularly want to hang out with Miriam, even though she's perfectly lovely. See?

So he spent a lot of time trailing closely behind Benjamin.

About the binoculars...a trip up the stairs to the top of the tower is included with your ticket to tour the caves. And those tickets aren't cheap! So you'd think—or I would think—they'd have free binoculars at the top, but no! You have to pay for those, too! What a racket! 

But Alexander found that on one of the machines, if you had the coin slot positioned just so...it would open the lenses for free! 

Here's what Benjamin had to say (he wrote very hurriedly and minimally just prior to leaving on his outing with Auntie K):

On our Tennessee trip, on the way back, we went to Ruby Falls. I learned that going into the unknown, crawling on his stomach, Leo Lambert could have turned back at anytime but "the same thing pulling me back was pushing me forward"—the urge of adventure.

My favourite part was when I was talking about the "cave monsters" and how they live in dark crevasses... 

Mom interjects:

Crevices...since there's no ice. The cave is a steady 60°F/15°C year round. We forgot to pack sweaters or anything...because we're from Georgia and it's barely September...so we were scrambling with ideas for warm(ish) clothing since I hadn't packed for a spelunking trip!

Fortunately, I happened upon their pyjamas while I was packing up at Rosie's house. Most of the kids had brought along long-sleeved pyjamas, which was perfect! So they wore their jammy shirts through the cave.

Here's Phoebe staring off into a crevice (it's actually not that deep of a crevice—you can see the water below, with the coins flashing in the light...and you can see she's wearing the top half of her fuzzy jammies):

Here we all are at the falls (except Auntie K, who took the picture) and you can see that Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe are all wearing jammy shirts):

Now back to Ben:

My favourite part was when I was talking about the "cave monsters" and how they live in dark crevasses [crevices]. Mom had just convinced Phoebe that there were none, when the tour guide walked up and said, "Oh, cave monsters? They only take 3–4 people a month" and she got scared.

Mom interjects:

Do you feel like you have déjà vu yet? Evidently that interaction was pretty impactful. 

Also, was it Rachel who always said "voo-dah-zhay" instead of "déjà vu"? I think it was.

Benjamin again:

My favourite formation was the cactus and candle one. It was a pearly white stalagmite, although the probability of you tripping on it is very small (a way to tell if something is a stalactite or stalagmite is that you might trip on a stalagmite and stalactites are holding tightly to the roof of the cave).

It did not look like a stereotypical stalgmite, but instead had two spots of growth. The stalagtite above it was in fact stereotypical, dripping water at a consistent rate.

Mom's turn:

I, unfortunately (old lady that I am), tweaked my back on one of the hundred times that I lifted Phoebe to carry her in the cave. I could hardly walk last night...but am feeling much better today. This is the second time I've "thrown out my back" this year (because apparently that's a thing I do now that I'm in my 40s). 

She's lucky she's cute:

I think it was really just that I had to hold her at such awkward angles (to avoid hitting her head on rocks and things) and for such a long time (about a mile) and on the rare occasions she would get down to walk (or crawl) she would often be frightened by something (usually a tour guide or older sibling's suggestion) and would run at me at full speed and launch herself into the air. 

So carrying her through the cave wasn't an easy task, is what I'm saying.

Miriam and Benjamin took turns when they could, which was very nice (especially after I hurt my back).

We're very grateful to Auntie K for taking us on this trip with her, and also to Uncle Allen for encouraging her to take this trip. He is so supportive of her trip that one evening while we were at Rosie's house, Kelli was on the phone with him (in her bedroom, away from all of us) and he asked her what her plans were on the drive home. She mentioned wanting to stop at Lookout Mountain, but that there were so many things to do on Lookout Mountain that she wasn't quite sure what we should do.

"Well, what do you want to do?" he asked.

She said that she wanted to go to Ruby Falls because (1) she loves waterfalls, (2) she loves caves, and (3) she had people to go do it with her (because Allen doesn't particularly love hiking or enclosed spaces, so it wasn't something he'd do with her). 

"Then what's stopping you?" he asked. 

She said it was really the price. Because it's a little more expensive than she thought. 

"Well, I think you should go!" he said. "You're there and you want to and...I just made the reservation for you all at 2:00 tomorrow...so you'd better go! Those tickets weren't cheap!"

Okay, so I wasn't on the phone and don't know precisely how the conversation went down, but that's the gist of it, as I understood it. Uncle Allen is a great guy—I'm so glad my sister found him! Those two really do bring out the best of each other.

Here's Auntie K with the kids, waiting for our tour time to be called:

Phoebe really likes her—she even said in her prayers that she was thankful that Auntie K could be here to visit and do so many fun things with us—but she does not like to sit by Auntie K or have Auntie K do anything for her. 

It can take quite a bit of time for Phoebe to warm up to people...so this tracks for her. 

That's why she's sitting beside Zoë—so that Zoë can act as a buffer.

Let's see...all my pictures were uploaded backwards and I've been placing them somewhat randomly in the kids' narratives as they fit...so I'm afraid you're seeing everything all jumbled. But here are pictures of us up on the top of the tower after we went down deep inside the cave. 

And here are some pictures from inside the cave...

At the falls (with Phoebe's hair hanging down and covering Alexander's face—she's busy looking up to the top of the waterfall):

Benjamin and Alexander at the falls:

Benjamin at the falls:

Oh, we learned that the water from the falls has a high level of magnesium and is therefore a strong laxative, much stronger than any laxative you'd ever be prescribed by a doctor, so they don't advice tasting it. It's very clean, having percolated through so much limestone...but that limestone is what gives it all that magnesium. So, yes, it's clean and it will clean you right out! 

Here are some more pictures from our walk through the cave:

This elephant's foot was one of my favourite formations (there was another dragon's foot that I also liked—apparently I was on a foot kick yesterday):