Penn's Caves

Friday night we went out for dinner to the Outback restaurant - a supposedly Australian restaurant, although the boomerang and koala pic's on the wall was about all there was Australian about it! It was a nice dinner though.

Saturday morning we drove 31/2 hours East to Central Pennsylvania's Penn Caves. Penn Caves is an underground cavern with a river running through it. The cavern is believed to be 30 million years old, and is full of stalagmites and stalactites. For some strange reason, the Americans feel compelled to name every rock formation they find, even though they look nothing like it. For example, the Statue of Liberty stalagmite is below.

Yep - this is supposedly the Statue of Liberty formation

The opening of the underground cavern

After the cavern tour, we went on a safari like tour through the property - they have hundreds of animals including black bear, white and black wolves, bobcat, elk, deer (including white deer), Texas long horn cattle and bison. We also saw a ground hog (which we see all the time now, especially running up the side of the road), chipmunks along with birds and ducks.

A white wolf - this one was the dominant male

White deer - isn't it gorgeous?

We learnt some really interesting stuff from the guide, who is also the animals vet.

* Deer shed their antlers every year. They have only just started growing back now, and grow between an inch and an inch and a half daily

* Elk antlers grow faster - around 2 inches daily

* Sometimes male bears don't go in to hibernation - instead they try and find a female to mate with. If the female is nursing a cub, the male will try and kill it.

* Bear have babies premature -and only carry them for 6 weeks before giving birth

* All wolves have yellow eyes with a black ring around them, even if they are cross-bred.

Bison

We had a great day, and the animals were so cute, especially the bears who looked so playful and cuddly, although wouldn't like to be in the cage with them!

The black bear was showing off!

Oh! And we saw a moose too! Ha! Ryan bought this hat for the boys to wear wakeboarding!