Sunday was my hubby Brian’s birthday and we decided to go somewhere a few hours away. We headed just above the Reading area to one of Pennsylvania’s ‘nature wonders’ Crystal Cave, Roadside America and the West Reading area.

I happen to turn on my phone (it’s not working anymore….died today) and saw where a geocache was just hidden about 45 minutes earlier. We turned around and headed back to yet another ancient cemetery cache. Sean got out of the car with me and we headed to the far end of the white washed wall. Sean actually had to climb over the wall and there it was, it was nicely camouflaged with fake ivy! So neat to be the ‘first to find’ for the second time.

The GPS took us down a winding road, but we saw lots of scenery too.

After a quick lunch, we got to the Crystal Cave area. There were balls of snow along the roads which we haven’t really seen down this way all winter.

I had to climb a rather steep hill to the entrance of the cave. I’ve been having problems with hills and since using the bike, I can see a little improvement, but I still had to stop a few times. After the tour, I was surprised at actually how steep the hill was!

The cave was found by mistake in the 1871. Two farmers were blasting for limestone (valuable for enriching the soil) and found the cave!

The cave itself was pretty neat. Brian took some great photos. It’s thousands and thousands of years old!

The ‘ball room’….there were actually a few weddings in here-one they had 100 people squeezed in here! That’s the altar to the left.

See Abe Lincoln?

When all the lights go out at the end of the day, 100s of bats fly out of the cave to fly through the night! Eek!

At one point, the guide turned out the lights and it was black as pitch. I felt and retrieved Sean’s hand. : )

They got a few inches of snow here the next day. We actually got more. It’s all gone now.

Next post-Roadside America!