Caverns of Sonora

Waxing Gibbous Moon

After wrassling Spugly along a slippery-ass, windy-ass, rainy-ass, 80-mph-speed-limit Interstate 10 for a few hours today, I took Exit 392 and turned south on a narrow-ass, curvy-ass, bumpy-ass, dippy-ass, flashfloody-ass, 70-mph-two-lane road to the Caverns of Sonora. The wind chill was 33°F and I was in no mood to fool around above ground for one more minute.

Fortunately for me (and about nine other shivering-ass pilgrims), Tour Guide Chris was preparing to lead whoever showed up at 1 p.m. deep into the bowels of the limestoney-ass Edwards formation, where the temperature is a steady-ass 72°F and the humidity stays right at about 98%. Balmy-ass.

It would be so balmy-ass down in the caverns that we were all warned to shed our fleece and our rain jackets into a bin before the Great Descent. We did so with worried-ass looks on our chapped, tense, red-ass faces. Tour Guide Chris promised us that our wraps would be there when we finished our tour. We sure hoped he was right.

You might be wondering why I am all of a sudden attaching the rather crude word "ass" to so many adjectives - so many sort of made up adjectives at that. Well, I can answer that question with one word and that word is: Texass. Texass is the peculiar-ass language one begins to speak (or write) once one has witnessed the mangled-ass carcasses (carc-ass-es) of a big-ass number of dead-ass armadillos along the side of the otherwise pristine-ass, Lone Star State-ass highways. Nuff said.

Now for the good stuff. I have been underground many, many times in guided explorations of commercial caverns all over California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. You could say that I heart caverns, if you were the bumper-sticker-ass sort of folk. I am here to tell you that Caverns of Sonora, about ten bumpy-ass miles off I-10, pretty dam close to Ozona, TX, is just about the prettiest-ass hole in the ground I ever saw.

I toured this balmy-ass place for two hours and enjoyed every drippy-ass minute of it. Tour Guide Chris was terrific. He amused when appropriate, but mostly he described and educated without seeming too collegiate. I liked his style and loved the caves.

Check out a few snapshots of some cool-ass cavern features.

The moral of the story is this: never pass up the chance to see the Caverns of Sonora. They will warm you up and give you something wonderful to smile about.

Peace, Love, and Stalactites,
Jim