Wow, it’s getting close! I don’t know about you but I’m getting excited. There are a couple of things I want to make sure everyone is aware of prior to camp.

First and most important, the ferry schedule. On the plus side, the ferry is running. On the downside, its current hours are Mon-Fri 6 am to 6 pm and Sat & Sun 8 am to 6 pm. Here’s what that means to us. For Dinner Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday if you are staying offsite on the non-Maple side of the river, you will be driving around to get back. This unfortunately includes the Friday Night Award Banquet. Wednesday night's pizza party will still be at the enclosed pavilion on the south side of the river followed by our Wednesday Night cave trip. This is great news for those staying offsite on that side of the river, for the rest of us, we will be driving around.

Speaking of Wednesday’s Pizza Party, how about some exciting news? Our after-hours cave trip will be a night at Huckleberry Knob hosted by the incredible Missy Shields and John Sies. As I understand it, we will have an opportunity to tour Onyx Cave and another nearby cave. I can’t wait!!

Of course, it can’t all be Pizza parties (we wouldn’t fit in the caves), our primary objective for the week is to give back to the park and nearby caves through volunteering our labor. To that end, I am putting out a couple of calls to action. First, if you are comfortable with vertical caving, please bring your gear. Second, if you would be interested in some potential wet caving (walking in cave rivers, possible short swimming) then don’t forget your wet suit and pack an extra towel. No guarantee that we will have vertical caving and or wet caving but just in case :) Also don’t forget, if you haven’t yet, to fill out and bring the waiver for our work with the James Cavers (link below) and attached.

Right, you’ve been resto’ing all week, it’s time for some Saturday educational trips. “Great, Brian, but where will we be going?” you ask. Well, as with many things in life, there are no guarantees. That said, we are working on lining up a shorter trip to “Short Cave” (see what I did there)! Our longer trip we are looking at heading to Mystic River! Holy cow, where to go?!

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the Howdy Party Sunday, July 31^st. It’s going to be a great week.

Brian

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