Mud, mud, glorious mud.

This was a big week for mud. On Tuesday, I got my truck stuck in the mud while taking on off-road trails in the back roads on post. "I just couldn't help myself" didn't seem like an acceptable explanation. The other Harrell was justifiably pissed, but she was still a great sport about the whole thing.  I called Brian to bail me out after my co-worker Kenny and I spent a couple hours digging, rocking and making a mess. Good times. Friday night the Wife and I went rappelling at Kings Point Bluff, and Saturday we went caving in Austin Peay (pronounced "pee") cave. Again... lots of mud. It was really awesome. However, something about my wife is extremely attractive to bats. Every few minutes she would make some comment about getting blasted in the face by the wing beats. I hardly saw one the whole night. What can I say.

The opening in the cave was out in the middle of a cow field. It had a pit type entrance that a couple of the guys fast roped down and the rest of us rappelled in. There was no dead dog bones at the bottom of this one, but a whole cow. Pretty amazing. Enjoy the pictures. Also, I am getting seriously tired of calling my wife "the Wife". I just can't take it anymore. It's so stupid.  
Your suggestions for a new interent code-name are extremely welcome.




Kenny, the really good sport.

Brian, my hero!




Me and that girl.




Christine and whats-her-name taking a break.




I don't know how she managed to stay this clean.




Eternal caving companions.  James and Tammy.

Dumb name, dumb idea, so much fun.

Spelunker (noun) a person who explores caves, esp. as a hobby.

From obsolete spelunk, cave, from Middle English, from Old French spelunque, from Latin spēlunca, from Greek spēlunx.

spe'lunk'ing.

Twice in the last two weeks the Wife and I have been spelunking.  I prefer "caving" because "spelunking" sounds so stupid.  And to my folks- the whole thing sounds stupid.  Snooping around in dark, flooded, muddy, unstable, bat and possibly werewolf-filled caves a hundred feet underground.  You would have to be an idiot, right?  Sorry Mom and Dad, we ARE that stupid.  Here are a couple pics and a short clip from our recent adventures.



Occasionally, a raccoon, or a dog chasing a raccoon, falls down the 65 foot vertical tunnel that is the entrance to this cave.  We found a few of these around the bottom of the pit.



My wife in front of a monstrous cave formation we called "The Rocketship" was at least 30 feet tall.



Us after a nice little underground swim.

Check out our 30 sec video clip.  It took a lot of worming around through really cramped, tight spots to finally get somewhere with enough space to actually stand.  Everyone was really excited about that.