We stood in the thick darkness deep in the earth, only feet away from an underground river. We knew the water was flowing, but the surface was still and there was no sound.
Normally, I don’t descend into the depths of the earth any deeper than the cellar. But earlier this month, when my friend Regina arranged for us to visit Alexander Caverns in the Kishacoquillas Valley, I was an enthusiastic proponent.
“It’s on a Nebraska Amish farm,” Regina told us. “They don’t have phones, but I asked my aunt to stop in and make arrangements for us to come on Saturday at one o’clock.
“It used to be open for the public to tour, but after it closed, a farming family purchased the land.”
Alexander Caverns, I would later learn, was first discovered in 1926, when two explorers searched for the underground source of a large nearby spring. A new opening was created, and the cave opened for tours in 1929, eventually including river tours. The cave closed in 1959. In the 1980s, a local caving group called Bald Eagle Grotto started giving pre-arranged tours, and the farming family gives informal, bring your own flashlight tours.
As we drove closer to the cave, Regina began pointing out the distinctive Nebraska Amish farms. “The barns are unpainted, but the houses are always white. And they have blue doors.”
“So the blue doors are actually a thing?” I asked. Of course, I’ve heard of Amish homes having blue doors to signify that the house has an eligible daughter, but I thought that might be a myth, like the old stories of Lancaster County barns having hex signs— something that may have been true two hundred years ago, but not now.
“They sure do.” Regina wasn’t joking, almost every farmhouse we saw had a bright aqua blue door. The blue paint also was also sometimes used as trim on houses or outbuilding, once we even saw a blue gate.
“Maybe that’s the only color they can use as an accent paint,” said Mary.
At the cave farm, we meet Jacob, the owner of the farm. “You all have flashlights or headlamps?” he asks. We all nod. “Here, sign this.” He handed around a piece of ordinary notebook paper and we dutifully sign our names.
“I don’t go down in the cave anymore since I had heart trouble. My son will take you.” Jacob gestures toward his son, who’s wearing a hat with a headlamp, and dressed in a brown jacket and pants like his father.
“There’s some people here today, ” says Jacob, pointing out cars parked nearby. “Sometimes they bring scuba diving equipment, and they come out looking like pigs.”
The hobbit-hole-like cave entrance is made from gray cement block rising from the earth with the words “Alexander Caverns 1929” running along the top. The rusty door warns “Danger Keep OUT NO Trespassing” in crude lettering.
Our tour guide unlatches the door, and we follow him into the cave.
First, there’s a long set of stairs descending into the earth. The steps are wet with rusty rickety handrails for support. This is clearly a manmade passage, tunneled with dynamite so the non-spelunking crowd can enter the caverns below.
Light from the opening door soon disappears and since the cave doesn’t have any lights (it used to have electric lights, but the Amish farmer removed them), it’s all up to our headlamps and flashlights. The limestone floor and floors are wet— because of the recent heavy rain, our tour guide explains.
Soon we leave behind the stairs and enter passages filled with stunning formations—stalactites and stalagmites in beautiful shapes, like icicles and mushrooms and sharp folds of fabric molded from stone.
Everywhere we shine our flashlights, there’s new things to see.
It’s the first time I can remember trying to take photos in a cave, and of course, without special equipment, it’s pretty tricky. I’m limited to trying to get photos of wherever people’s flashlights happen to be pointing. And there’s absolutely no dawdling in a cave— we all stick close together.
As our group walks through the sloping passages, I think of Tom Sawyer and Becky lost in the cave and dwarves digging for jewels. I know the book of Job has a passage about underground places.
Then I think about miners in Chile trapped in a collapsed mine, or the boys in Indonesia, trapped a cave when the water rose unexpectedly. I wish the cave wasn’t quite so wet and dripping.
The last descent is a muddy, rocky slope, next to the rotted remains of a wooden staircase. It’s not as bad as it sounds, it’s just an ease-yourself-down using all fours type of muddy, rocky slope.
At the bottom of this chamber flows a river.
We stand a few feet from the edge and stare at the water. I know it has to be flowing, but it’s still, like a pond, and completely silent.
Alicia squats down beside the river and washes her hands. “It’s cold,” she tells us.
We haven’t seen any sight of the cavers whose cars were parked at the entrance, so they must have either taken a boat or gone underwater diving. Bald Eagle Grotto offers both.
Alicia reports seeing a boat off to the side of the chamber.
I decide boats tours might be fun with good lights and a lifejacket, but nothing on or below the earth could persuade to me to go scuba diving in a cave. I stay far from the edge— my hands will stay muddy.
Before we start back again, Regina suggests we all turn off our lights and see how dark it is. In the pitch blackness, we stand together and sing, “How Great Thou Art”.
As we were walking out, we met a group of cavers, carrying much better flashlights. We stop at an especially drippy part and wash the mud off our hands.
Regina asks our tour guide, whose name I didn’t get (he was a man of few words) if the blue doors have any significance. “No,” he replies. So maybe it’s just an old custom.
When writing this blog, I decide to look up the passage in Job that talks about the “recesses of the deep.” Of course, the writer is talking about mines, not caves, but both draw in people searching for the gifts of the earth.
There is a mine for silver
Job 28:1–11
and a place where gold is refined.
Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
Mortals put an end to the darkness;
they search out the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
Far from human dwellings they cut a shaft,
in places untouched by human feet;
far from other people they dangle and sway.
The earth, from which food comes,
is transformed below as by fire; lapis lazuli comes from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
People assault the flinty rock with their hands
and lay bare the roots of the mountains.
They tunnel through the rock;
their eyes see all its treasures.
They search the sources of the rivers
and bring hidden things to light.
“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.”
Psalms 71:20
Very interesting! Not sure I would be brave enough to venture in but it looks beautiful in a unique way.
I can’t remember reading that passage from Job before, also very interesting.
Are you certain, Brenda? Because I was going to suggest a family subterranean boat tour instead of camping next summer. (Just kidding! We’d miss our trains.)
The book of Job has such beautiful descriptions of nature.
The trip to the caves sounds really interesting and your pictures were good, despite the lighting. I like your writing style, Susan. Singing in the darkness must have been fun! God is so great!
Thanks for your kind words, Ruth! Truly God is with us wherever we go.
Why does this say a Nebraska Amish farm? This is near my hometown in Pennsylvania.
Good question! “Nebraska” refers to the sect of Amish, not the location. The family that owns the farm where the cave entrance is located are part of a group who are called the Nebraska Amish because an early leader had lived in Nebraska for some time. The farm is in the Kishacoquillas Valley of PA.