Cumberland Caverns

On Saturday, Finn and I traveled to McMinnville, Tennessee to attend "The Creation Museum" tour of Cumberland Caverns.  Finn's friend Jack (and his mom Shelley) invited us to go with them. We got there a few minutes early and waited for Jack and Shelley to arrive. I let Finn sit in the front seat.  He loved it! 

Finn's "starting" picture.  

The "main attraction" was Buddy Davis.  He is a Christian Scientist/Explorer.  He also writes and performs children's songs.  Jack is a HUGE Buddy Davis fan. 

Finn and Buddy Davis

Next the boys played in this crawl through crate while we waited for the tour begin. 

At this point Finn is yelling, "I AM THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN."  

Then they fought with sticks.

Next it was time to walk to the cave.  

This is a picture of Finn seeing a cave for the first time.  He was in such awe of his surroundings!  The minute he entered the cave he said, "MOM - Give me my flashlight."  Once he turned it on he inspected everything he saw. 

Finn and Jack at the "Moby Dick" formation. 

The tour did not hold Finn's attention.  So when the guide would stop to talk about the cave, Finn and Jack would wander off and explore.  Finn stuck his flashlight in every nook and cranny he could find.   I really didn't listen that much either because I had so much fun watching Finn. 

We let the boys run off a little bit.  As long as they were in sight we let them explore as much as they wanted. 

At one point during the tour the lights went out.  Finn was so excited! He grabbed his flashlight and showed the way for the people behind us. Then he exclaimed, "now this is what I call caving!"  A woman in front of us turned around and agreed with him and then told me how precious he was. 

We took these pictures at the end of the tour.  

They told us not to wander off because we might get lost.  So what did we do . . . we wandered off of course.  Since Finn had a flashlight we decided to go down a dark corridor.  I think that Finn's favorite part was walking in the dark.  The boys decided to walk back after I started telling spooky stories. 

Next we listened to a concert by Buddy Davis.  He sang one song about Jonah and the Whale.  During this song, he instructed everyone to pretend to spit Jonah out. Finn didn't quite understand the "pretend" part and spit all over me. 

Then it was time for dinner.  We had Subway sandwiches. 

After dinner we watched Buddy Davis' new caving video.  After about 20 minutes Jack and Finn decided to further explore the cave. 

Here we have Finn and Jack crawling over the "high voltage" wires.  There is actually a sign that says, "HIGH VOLTAGE - STAY OFF."   I didn't know this at the time.

The next time we looked over we found Finn and Jack scaling the walls of the cave. 

Here is Finn climbing over to the guard rails.   These rails are put in place to ensure that people don't fall to their death in the mouth of the "Great Room."  Finn was doing a great job climbing, so I wasn't afraid of him a falling.  I was, however, afraid that we would be asked to leave the cave.  

I met Finn at the top and helped him over the guard rail.  There were two little boys on the other side.  They looked very mad and asked that I tell Finn and Jack to refrain from climbing.  I gave both Finn and Jack "high - 5's" for awesome climbing and told them that they should probably go play on a flatter area. 

So they did.  Here they are "pretending" to climb. 

After the movie was over we grabbed our stuff and hiked out of the cave. 

On our way out we took pictures at the mouth of the cave. 

I am so glad that I was able to go to the cave with Finn.  I know I have said this before, but he LOVED it.  Every few minutes he would grab my camera and take a picture.  He said, "I want Nana to see everything!"  He also took a rock, a leaf and pocket full of dirt as a souvenir. 

In this picture I asked Finn and Jack to show me how much fun they had.  

When we got home we found Sam laying on the floor playing his game.  

We also found Papa's new shirt!