Caverns and Ants and Bats, Oh My!

After our lovely trip to visit my dear friend, Kerry, in Thomas, I meandered up north a couple hours on some old country roads to meet my sister Kim and my cousin Ronda.

Destination: Selman, Oklahoma.
Purpose: See the 1 million+ bats perform their nightly exit from their resting cave

Note: This was NOT my idea. My cousin Ronda got it going, and apparently has a fascination with the event. My sister is a scientest at heart and bought right into it. Me? I guess I caved in to Bat Pressure.

But first, we had time to visit Alabaster Caverns.
I have visited other caves before, but the kids have never witnessed the underground magnificence of God's hand. Or felt the cool 58 degree cave temperatures! (It was 101 outside!) Even Luke had to duck.After the cave tour, we went to an ampitheather to hear an exciting rendition of "Echolocation." What I would do to have video posted of that one. It was cringingly funny. Anyway, poor Luke was watching the show while standing on the entrance hole to a red ant colony. Once we discovered what was happening, his jeans and shoes were crawling with the large insects. I screamed "STOMP Luke, STOMP!" But he got bit twice, once on the ankle and once on the neck. As you can see, it almost ruined our night. He was pretty upset. Here is where we waited for the bats. And waited. And waited. Finally, they came. They came in what is called columns.
And more columns. And more. 1 hour of this. I'm serious.
We could hear their wings fluttering above us in a dull buzzing sound. It was amazing. I'm convinced that everything God does, he does in the most amazing ways. Out of the ordinary. Spectacular.
Luke was feeling much better by this time. The bats got him over the ants. And then we crawled our creepy little selves into our hotel rooms. That night, Ellie dreamed about snakes.