After baking in the sun for a bit over an hour watching the eclipse, we moved onto the second phase of our adventure --- Lost Sea Caverns. In retrospect, planning to hit a cave in the zone of totality a few hours after the event wasn't such a great move since it meant lots of waiting in line. But I'm still glad we went.

The highlight of Lost Sea Caverns is a four-acre underground lake at the end of the tour. But the rest of the cave is also huge and beautiful.

My main point of comparison is Bristol Caverns, and I'd have to say Lost Sea lacks a lot of the intricate formations found there while making up for that lack with a host of intriguing features all its own. For example --- rare cave flowers that resemble sea urchins stuck to the ceiling...

...and signatures from Confederate soldiers.

I'd have to say the boat ride was my favorite part though.

As usual when on a guided cave tour, I wished there was an option to travel in silence and spend more time soaking up the wonderousness of the surroundings. Still, we got lucky with an awesome, geology-trained tour-guide (ask for Thomas) and came home with lots of intriguing tidbits to ponder.

All around, an inspiring end to a day begun by staring at the sun. We definitely made this east Tennessee vacation count!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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