For those of you who don’t know, I work telephone tech support for a large company who feels weekends are for the weak and executives, director level and above. Every other week (or every other two weeks) we, the workers, get two days off in a row. Last weekend was one of those two days off for me. On the weeks where we don’t have two days off in a row, we get a random week day off. For me, that day fell on Tuesday…In a fit you ‘you stinking bastards’ I decided to burn a vacation day and get four wondrous days off.
Being the kinda guy I am, I decided to take a road trip and share my experiences with (all three or four) you! It’s not that I’m trying to brush up on my ‘blogging’ and photography skills mind you 
After a bit contemplation, reflection and casting runes, I fired up Glenda, The Good GPS, and headed East, to Howe Cavern. Follow the link, it’ll give you the skinny 
The trip is about 2.5 hours, with no stops, from Syracuse, NY or about 120 miles one way.
Ohh, yeah…If you get a chance, have someone else drive you, some of the scenery is amazing! Had I been in my right mind, I would have setup my second camera to take pics of the drive there.
After getting off at Exit 29 on I-90 I relied pretty heavily on Glenda. The signage for Howe Caverns was a bit light (it may have been the route that Glenda selected) tho I did find plenty of signs for Secret Caverns (I did go there too, but they deserve a separate writeup). It takes a little over 25 minuets from the exit to get to Howe Caverns, and it’s hard to miss when you get there. I would have placed the pictures of the entrance right about here, had I remembered to take them
A quick note for those of you that have an iPhone, after you get off the Thruway (I-90) yer going to be on the Edge network, this is not really good for loading maps and driving at the same time, or streaming music from the internet .
Somethings you may need to know before buying your tickets and plunging in to the depths. Bring a jacket, it’s 52 degrees Fahrenheit in the underhill. Photogs, bring a jacket with pockets if you plan to bring an assortment of lenses, there are no backpacks allowed. If you plan on taking long exposure pictures, lay off the caffeine or bring pocket sized tripod, there are no full sized tripods or monopods allowed. The normal tour is around 80 minuets (a little longer if you have some laggard in the group who looks at everything, and takes pics of almost every thing he looks at) there are no bathrooms in the caverns and no food allowed either.
There is a lot to look at while wanderin…following the tour. I took 131 pictures while with the group, I would have taken more had I been given time to wander on my own. I edited and posted about 40. Most were rejected, due to the amount of shake from too many stimulants and low light shooting. I went flashless to capture some of the atmosphere lent by the colored lights used to highlight rock features and calcite formations through out the caverns.
You can find all my pictures of Howe Caverns on Flickr. In the future I’ll make sure I write descriptions for the pictures so you have a better idea of what yer looking at…
At the halfway mark of the tour, there is a short boat ride along the River Styx. The tour guides push the boats along the river to a dam which marks the end of the currently finished section of the caverns. I was really, really tempted to take a picture (using my flash, of course), but resisted the urge, fearing I would not only blind my boat companions, but, send one of the guides in to the drink (the water is 42 degrees).
After the boat ride, the tour continues back along the path you came in on, with a diversion to the Calcite Heart (as seen in the picture at the top of this article) then heading though a narrow twisting corridor. When you get to this point, you understand when they don’t want you to bring a back pack From here it’s back up the elevators and back to the sunlit world.
On my way out, I stopped by a shop, attached to the main building, that sells geodes, polished minerals and bags of sand.
The geodes are uncut and are priced by size. After you pick your rock, you give it to the cashier, who then slices the geode open on a water cooled saw while you wait. Mine took about 20 minutes to open.
I filled the time by getting a large bag of sand, and using the water sluice and panning screen provided, hunted for emeralds, pyrite, quartz and whatever else lay hidden.
As you see, I got a pretty good haul, but it wasn’t really enough to retire on
I may have to go back again and try the lamplight tour. It’s a two hour trip by lantern light and sounds pretty amazing
Don’t give me a hard a time, you’ve done it too ;-P
