Little Trooper

Aeryn and I hiked to Timpanogos Cave with our friend Katie. Boy, was Aeryn awesome. The trail is 1.5 miles each way and has an elevation gain of about 1200 feet. The longest hike we'd ever done before today was 1 mile total around Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. I knew this was quite a stretch for her and just hoped for the best. We had an hour and a half to get to the top for our tour of the cave and made it up there in time to sit in the shade for about 5 minutes before the tour started.

As motivation Katie and I encouraged Aeryn to hurry so she could see the "dragon cave" like one in Dora's Fairytale Adventure video. It worked, and all through the tour she would get giddy and chuckle looking around at where the dragons once lived. It brought a few smiles from the others on the same tour.

I was asking several questions of our guide that were spurred by the geology classes I've taken so far and it was interesting to see his reaction. First, he said "I love having Earth Science majors on the tour" and then my next question, 30 seconds later, prompted the reply "I hate having Geology majors on the tour." The contrast was hilarious. I guess he liked it when I wasn't explaining things to the others before he'd gotten to that point in his schpeal. It was a great afternoon. Aeryn not only made it all the way to the top, but walked through the cave tour and all the way back down again. I did carry her for probably ten minutes of the excursion, but it was so minimal that I just give her credit for the whole thing. She really earned it.