TiMpaNoGos CaVE HiKE....Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's to the cave we GO!!!!

Friday night I decided it was time to finally take "Dan the Hiking Man" to Timpanogos Cave in American Fork. Can you believe he has never been there!?!  It had been almost 25 years since I had been there myself.  Saturday we woke up to rain and I was bummed...:(      We still decided to go and take umbrella's.  The rain was gone by the time we got to the canyon and it was a perfect partly cloudy day. NICE!!

Here we are at the start of the hike. We had to wait 1 1/2 hours for it to be our turn. Our start time was 11:30 am. I didn't know that is how it worked. When it is your turn you go to the trailhead and then you start hiking  they give you 1 1/2 hours to get up to the top. Our tour of the cave started at 1:10 pm.

We started up the trail and instantly it was steep and I was not excited for the long walk to the top. I do not like hiking up hill at all!! I can do it but for some reason my calves do not like it  and they switch into a gear that I hate as I feel so sluggish like they don't want to work. It's weird, I think my thighs would be burning not my calves. My calves don't burn either they just don't like walking uphill. it's the only way I can explain it. I walk backwards as much as possible up hill and backwards down hill and I am way faster and they don't feel so sluggish. Crazy!!

My pictures are a little out of order..Oopsy!! On my computer I can click on the pictures and they get bigger. So if you can't see these very good try clicking on the pictures.

 When we first got to the parking lot Dan had to park up the road a bit. Because we had to wait for over an hour we jumped in the car and went exploring the canyon. I was so worried to leave the parking spot we got for fear we would have to park further away when we got back. There is not much parking for such a busy place!! But, my parking angels were looking out for us today and when we came back we got the best spot across the street from the main parking lot!!! Thank you Parking Angels!!  I was soooo happy!! :)

 Starting up the trail.....

Dan was so patient with my slow pace. Truly, he could have run up the trail and been there in probably a half an hour.

Yay! we are at the top!!

Just before the tour.

 In the cave. On the way up I kept seeing people without jackets....like dumb girls in tiny shorts and tops!  I hope they froze during the cave tour for being so dumb. It gets cold in there! I knew this as I have been here before but it was colder than I remember. It's fine with a jacket on.

 We had a kid that was a volunteer guide that I quickly made our personal photographer. He was great!

After the hike we were HUNGRY. So we looked through our Happenings book and decided to go to "Emmett and Ethel's" in Lehi. I have driven by it a dozen times wanting to go try it out. It ended up being a cute and awesome place and Dan had the best BLT he has had in ages!!   They have Root Beer in a BIG frosty mug and it was FREE and had free refills just by texting a # to the restaurant.  They are way into icecream and shakes. If you want a good hamburger we highly reccomend this place. It's like a good ole Hometown restaurant.

Where's Emmett????? Read this picture to tell you the story about Emmetts!! If you have a Happenings book, go use your 2 for 1 coupon. You don't have to get the hamburger you can get whatever.
It was a very fun day and Dan has now been inside of a mountain as well as on top of a mountian. He can now check off the cave from his bucket list!!