date-hike to timpanogos cave

5:30 am Saturday morning we woke up to a terrific thunderstorm.
I think Utah was trying to chastise me for my facebook comment not even a week earlier
about Texas's thunderstorms being better
because Utah gave it all she's got,
and we woke up,
house shaking, rain pelting, lightning striking, thunder booming.

Our kids slept through it somehow.

Kent and I sat in bed together and listened.
At its most intense,
we could actually hear the "zap!" right before the light and the thunder struck simultaneously.

And while it was pretty awesome,
I still have to say that Texas thunderstorms are better,
because just minutes later, the sky was quiet, and we went back to sleep.

And only an hour later, our alarms woke us again,
we put on our tennis shoes and jackets,
got Sarah up from her sleep in the basement and we drove to the visitor's center for Timpanogos cave.

The canyon was so beautiful; I made Kent stop over and over (you're the best, Babe!) while we were hiking to the cave-
the drippy trees, low-hanging clouds, sunrise-incredible.

The canyon was starting to show signs of fall-a few spots of orange and red--and the trail smelled like wet autumn leaves. One of my favorite smells.
The weather was perfect for hiking,
which was a good thing,
because it was much more of a hike than we were anticipating.

One of those times when you think you're probably getting pretty close to the top,
and then you see the "1/4" marker sign.

But, it was fun. We kind of get stuck in the dinner-and-a-movie date rut sometimes, and this was so exciting and different and challenging and we were together,
laughing and cracking inside jokes
and yes, sometimes mimicking our kids or talking about the ca-razy things they do.

 Despite how out-of-shape we are, we made it to the top almost an hour before our scheduled tour time. 

They let us go early, and our tour guide was this hilarious old man-so deadpan and cracking jokes the whole time.  

They turned the lights off at one point, and in the pitch black the guide asked if anyone had a diamond on their ring.

No one volunteered, so I offered mine-

he shined a laser directly into the diamond, making thousands of twinkly red lights all across the cave ceiling.  

The teenage kid behind me said,

"That's the coolest thing I've seen all day!"  

 It was cool,

but I think the cave was cooler.  Lots of narrow passageways, 

ducking and bending and twisting to get through them-

incredible slow-growing formations,

walking directly on the wasatch fault line-looking straight up into the solid flesh of the earth.

Very cool.

We finished up the morning with lunch/breakfast at Wendy's,
then came home to start our Saturday chores that didn't feel so chore-ish after our morning in the cave.