One Year Ago . . . Nutty Putty Tribute

A long time ago, specifically a year ago I was having the time of my life. This exact day for example last year I was crawling through the Nutty Putty caves with my friends. This is the story.

I can't remember why we decided to go to the Nutty Putty caves but Mr. Carman I'm sure was at the root of it, he often chose the most exciting and fun things to do. So we met at the Bowen's house all dressed up warm and in our clothes that we could get muddied up in and dirty with. And we were set! We drove off, listening to the most amazing music in the car on the way (namely Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli), driving through the cold weather it began to be foggy and then snow and it was hard to find our way to the caves but we followed Mr. Carman's car and we eventually got there.

So we got out of the cars, it was snowing and we climbed up this pretty steep hill (unless the car you were in could handled the steep climb, Mr. Carman's could but ours couldn't . . .) so we all met at the top and then we walked the short distance to the entrance. Mr. Carman briefly tried to play the trick that it didn't exist as we stood out in the snow freezing our fingers off and then slowly one by one we descended below.

I was one of the last people through, but as we froze outside we slowly climbed into this moist pit that was all rocky. The heat slowly rose and kept us from hypothermia (yay!) Then I descended . . .

I was really scared at first. You have to crawl through the entrance which is called the rabbit hole or something like that and you crawl head first and then you turn so that you can wriggle through. I got stuck at one point but then I heard everybody singing the song "Hallelujah" by Il Divo and I was able to follow the voices and I made it through okay. Behind me though my friend's dad got stuck - that was kind of scary but all was okay in the end.

The Big Slide was pretty cool, but there was this part just below it I think that I nearly broke my leg, I couldn't find any place to put my feet! But I got down and it was so cool. There was another part where we just kept going down and down . . . I can't remember who I was nearby but we all helped each other get through that part too.

Probably the best part for me was the worm hole. At first I was scared to go in it because I didn't know if I was claustrophobic or not, then I couldn't go because there were too many people in that part of the cave so I waited with my brother and his girlfriend for those people to get out so we could go.

So they got out and we went in. It was so comfortable in the wormhole. It was probably at the widest part 3 ft in diameter and 2 in the smallest part. I got stuck once but that was at the very end and because I was crawling weird. I now know that I'm not in the lead bit claustrophobic, because I was going too fast for Cameron and Rebecca (my bro and his girlfriend) so they told me to wait up and while I did I would lay my head down and once I actually almost fell asleep. I kept singing songs to myself too - I'm a bit of a weirdo that way, music comforts me. I sang hymns and Josh Groban songs and even Hallelujah again. :)

We reached the end chamber of the wormhole, took a breather there and then headed back again. When we came back out Mr. Carman and some others were looking for us. They were scared since we'd taken longer than they'd expected that one of us had gotten stuck. We climbed back out of the Birth Canal (which is how you get to the Wormhole) and then I got stuck again on the Big Slide and Mr. Carman, and Quinn helped me up (thank you!).

We got out of caves safely and it had been amazing! We then (freezing cold because it was snowing even harder and it was now evening and temperatures had dropped even more and we'd just come from the sweaty warmth of the caves) so we stuck as many people as we could into one van and then like three of us had to walk back down. We borrowed coats and were off!

Everybody down at the base of the hill we drove away and Mr. Carman (being the cautious driver that he was . . . not!) popped a tired and they had to change it out (how many times has a tire blown out with his car? like three times?) haha anyway so then we were off again. We decided to go eat at Cafe Rio because we were all starving.

Many good memories . . . "I've got snow in my eye!" "Cutting his little rice wrists!" "Why go home when there's a Ross Dress for Less across the street?!?" and many more . . . You never forget those best times of your life. Thank you Mr. Carman for taking us there!!!!

Kaylla

PS - first picture is the entrance
second picture is the Big Slide (I think)
third picture is the wormhole
fourth picture is some in our group - Sarah, Olivia, Drew, Whitney, Quinn, my mom and Mr. Carman (the flash hit his face weirdly . . . haha)