{"id":2471,"date":"2011-01-02T16:11:43","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T02:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2011-01-20T23:06:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T09:06:01","slug":"christmas-2010-austin-inner-space-cavern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/?p=2471","title":{"rendered":"Christmas 2010 Austin &#8211; Inner Space Cavern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It started out like many mornings this vacation, with a late breakfast of Grandma&#8217;s steel cut oatmeal:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-bf-bib.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>For the activity that day, we decided on the Inner Space Cavern, not too far to the north. While waiting for our tour, Andy looked at the map of the cave, thinking of caving in his youth:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-map.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Leilani found the playground:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-play.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-play1.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>And Jim helpfully recorded the unconventional story of the cave&#8211;discovered by freeway:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-plaque.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The visit starts with a short tram ride down into the cave, only 30 feet (10 m) below the surface:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-going-down.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The blue lights in the background indicate passageways where the cave continues:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-sl.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-cave1.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>There were lots of little rooms and passages with neat formations, here soda-straws:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-sodastraws.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Flowstone:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-cave2.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>And draperies:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-cave3.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>From the beginning, Jim and Andy started lagging behind to take pictures:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-group.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-jim.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes we caught up to take group photos:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-drsl.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>But then we fell behind again:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-formation1.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-formation2.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This was the biggest room of the cave:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-kasses.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-kasses2.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>At the furthest point was  little room with 3 pretty lakes, with colored lights for effect:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-green-lake.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-lake.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This one is called Half-Moon Lake:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-hml.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Another short tram ride (for effect) back to the surface:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-going-up.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Out near the playground, they had sluices for people to &#8220;discover&#8221; gemstones hidden in dirt sold inside. Sonja and Leilani and everyone else ended up finding little pieces of colored rocks in the gravel all around:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-isc-washing-stones.jpg' height=\"600\" width=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>That night, we went on another parent&#8217;s night out. We went to a closer, vegetarian restaurant and then to see the movie Tron. When we got home, Leilani was still watching her movie with uncle David and Grandpa Jim:<br \/>\n<img src='http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/images2\/6\/1\/web\/101230-tv.jpg' height=\"450\" width=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It started out like many mornings this vacation, with a late breakfast of Grandma&#8217;s steel cut oatmeal: For the activity that day, we decided on the Inner Space Cavern, not too far to the north. While waiting for our tour,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2831,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/2831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}