Alabaster Caverns

Zaine has been studying rocks in science for the past month. Last week the weather warmed up and we went to Alabaster Caverns in Freedom, OK. Its about a 2 1/2 hour drive from here. Nana and Papa joined us for our "adventure" as Tay called it.

On the way we stopped at McDonald's in Woodward and Tay loved playing on the huge indoor play stuff. I wish we had one where we live!! After that we loaded up and went another 30 minutes to the Caverns.

There was more than we anticipated. They had live snakes, spiders, bat skeletons and a stuffed owl. There were many different rocks , many of which we had only seen in books and on the computer.



Black widow...



Rocks...
Oklahoma state rock..
It was amazing to see this tiny skeleton...so tiny.
Big rattlesnake...it was as tall as Zaine!!!
Nana and Tay looking for "bears". (There were no bears but Tay was sure she would see one!)

The gypsum highlighted with lights...

Crystallized gypsum..
This was the ceiling....it was really smooth to the touch...
Going down....

These were on the ceiling....can you believe water did this??? So cool how God works!!!

Zaine going the adventurer route..
The bats....I did not know there were going to be bats EVERYWHERE! I think we enjoyed learning about them as much as the caverns. The bats were in hibernation. They can hibernate for 4 months! They were throughout the cavern but this was a big cluster! There was estimated to be 15,000 bats last year. They count them every year.
Tay looking at one up close...



Alabaster Caverns is the largest gypsum cavern opened in the world. It's sounds so cool that we can say we've been there now!