So I had my first dissapointing (and in my opinion kinda sad) experience on this trip yesterday. We visited the "Cave of the Winds" here in Colorado. First the tour was dull, as our group was guided by teenagers who really didn't know anything more than the absolute basics about caves. And relyed more on stupid jokes than on information. This I expect at a tourist attraction. What I didn't expect was what had been done to this cave over the years. Since being made a tourist attaction the cave has been near to completly killed (in that no formations inside are growing. Be it from having a staircase built in one chamber, to putting words on this wall. At one point someone on the tour asked if a certain formation was still growing, the guide said "ohh, no, minus the one we showed you, everything in here is dead. The blasting and digging that was done killed all the moisture, and any that could build up again and bring some of this back to life is absorbed by the skin of tourists.

Basically, this natural wonder, has been blown up, bastardized, and destroyed, all with the end result to make sure they can jam more people down, and make more money. As a bit of a naturalist, I can't help but feel revulsion at the whole place. If you are ever in Colorado. Visit Pikes Peak, it's absolutely breathtaking (both figuritivly, and litterally, at 15,000 or so feet above sea level, breathing is really freakin hard) and Visit Garden of the Gods, it's free! thanks to a generous owner at one point in it's history, and really beautilful. But if you think about seeing the Cave of the Winds, don't waste your time, all you'd get is a tour of a grave site.

Danny