Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota

I guess I might be a little claustrophobic, but the idea of going into a cave kind of bothers me. So I was a lot more interested in doing some hiking and bird watching at Wind Cave. However, my more adventurous travel companions convinced me to go on the tour. We went on the last one of the day, and were very lucky to be the only 3 people on the tour. I want to give huge props to our guide, Ranger Chandra Foster, for giving us an informative, enthusiastic explanation of the formations of the cave and the history behind its exploration. The photo shows us standing at the 'natural entrance' to the cave, which is a pretty small hole that we all COULD have fit through, but luckily got to go into a man-made entrance (lucky at least for my sake, m was about to jump right in). Wind Cave has nearly all the boxwork formations in the world and and we also got to see lots of dogtooth spar, which is another formation.

Yes, I look frightened in the picture, but was feeling much better about caves AFTER the tour.