And the grande finale - Thunder Island!

Well, it's sad, but we knew this day would come - the last day of the 2008 DeGaetano Staycation. For day #5 we went to Thunder Island - a small, family-owned water park in Fulton, NY. It only has four adult rides and three kiddie rides, but it also has miniature golf, go-karts and a ferris wheel (and is way closer and way cheaper than Enchanted Forest!). Also, two of the adult rides can be ridden by small children if they are accompanied by an adult, which we took advantage of, of course! Anyhow, it was perfect weather for such a day, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. There are not a lot of pictures in this blog - I was too busy riding rides and splashing around to snap photos all day!

Maria loved the lazy river - she went around and around and around and around...

Maria messing around with the sprinklers

Maria going down one of the kiddie slides

Maria and Daddy playing around in the wading pool (Maria would have spent hours in that pool - she thought it was the coolest!) The slides that you see in the background here are the two kiddie slides - they were so cool because they were pint sized, and emptied in the wading pool which was only about 18 inches deep, plenty shallow enough to make it safe for almost all sizes. Also, the slide on the left was a big wide one (wide enough to fit 4 or 5 people across!) that was a straight shot down - perfect for a family like ours to go down all together!

Thunder Island...continued

Josephine wasn't so sure about this place in the beginning. By the time we got there, she was long overdue for a nap and so not interested in water play time...

Here is Josephine looking VERY unamused by of the merriment going on around her...

Here is Josephine with her one true love - a sippy cup filled with milk. We have found that, when it comes to Josephine, all the ills of the world are solved by a sippy cup filled with milk...

She then took a nap on a towel and woke up a different kid! (naps are amazing like that, aren't they?)

After her nap, she couldn't get enough of the rides (that's her going down all by herself!) - going down the slide over and over and over and over...She actually started crying when the place closed and it was time to go home.

This may be a small park, but it is definitely enough to make a day of, and the PERFECT thing for families with small children - we will be going back again next year!

Thanks for checking in on our staycation adventures - now go plan yours!

The DeGaetanos explore Howe Caverns!

For Day #4 of our staycation, we took a long drive (2 hours) to explore the Howe Caverns - an underground cave world that, according to geologists, was formed millions of years ago by an underground river. The entire thing is naturally formed, except for the brick walkways and modern lighting installed to enable visitors to tour it. The tour lasted about 1 1/2 hours (Josephine slept on Lou's shoulder for half of it!), and was truly a once in a lifetime experience!


This is the scene we pulled up to - the building where you find the gift shop, the café, the place where you can cut your own geodes or mine for gemstones, and also where the tour begins. The building is actually much bigger (about 7 times as long as what you see here), but I couldn't fit it all in my camera! I just had to take a picture, not only because I thought the building itself was really pretty (I love the tudor style!), but also because I couldn't help but notice the fantastic view!

I just love all the valleys and rolling hills of New York!

The caverns are quite a ways below-ground - 156 feet to be exact, or the equivalent of 15 stories down. We took an elevator down to start our tour. The caverns are 52º year-round, regardless of the weather outside, so it was quite a bit chilly down there. Luckily, I had some towels in the car, so we were able to wrap the girls in them to keep them warm!

Because of the constant cool temperature, there is a local company that pays to use some of the space in the caverns to store and age their cheese - you can see here that there are quite a few wheels of the stuff. I have to say, I was curious as to how this "cavern-aged" cheese tasted...

This was one of the first things we saw in the caverns - a huge rock formation that looks like Godzilla - can you see the eye at the top, the nostril at the left and the mouth below? (he is facing the left) Pretty cool, huh?

The Caverns continue!

I suppose this isn't the greatest picture (Lou is the one in the red shirt), but I was trying to show in it how high the ceilings were in many parts of this place

This is something called a skilaktidite (I'm sure that I am butchering that spelling!), formed by minerals that drip down, harden, and eventually become hard rock. They asked us not to touch the active ones (the ones still forming and hardening), since the oils from our fingers turn them an ugly brown, but this was one inactive (done forming), so they told us that we could touch it if we wanted. Although it looks really slimy, it actually felt really neat - cold and smooth.

Here is Lou and the girls posing with the skilaktidite

We even got to take a boat ride along the underground river for part of the tour (this was our boat). There were no motors, and the tour guides just used long poles to push us along through the water - we felt like we were in some kind of Indiana Jones movie, especially the part where we had to turn around because we came up to a waterfall with a drop of about 200 feet!

The light parts of the rock that you see are the reflection of the electric lighting that was here and there throughout the caverns to enable us to see in the dark. These rocks look wet, but they're not, they're just really shiny!

Yes, more cavern pics...

Maria pretending to be scared...

This is a photo of part of the high walls and ceilings in the caverns - so creepy and cool looking!

Maria was so fascinated with this small tunnel in the wall (she was convinced there was something living inside)

She even got the nerve to climb up into it!

Maria and Mommy goofing off near the end of the tour...

The end of the caverns

The spot that Maria is standing on is known as "The heart of the caverns", and legend has it that if you stand on that spot, you will be married within a year, and that if you are already married, that you will be going on a second honeymoon within a year...with someone other than your current husband...

This is another one of those skilaktidite thingys...

This was the part of the caverns known as "the winding way", because it is just that - a narrow path through the caverns that twist and turns all over the place, with tight corners, and sometimes very low ceilings.

Okay, I don't know this guy, but I took this picture to show how low the ceilings got sometimes!

Here is Maria running through the last of the winding way - it was so much fun to go through!

We absolutely LOVED the caverns, and would recommend them to anyone in the area - talk about a unique experience! They were so beautful and absolutely amazing to see in person! Just another one of God's creations that just blows me away...

After the caverns

After we finished the tour, we had some lunch and headed off to see some other sites. We had found a map at the gift shops that showed some neat places to see in the area, and decided to check two of them out. The first was a Butterfly Conservatory, and the second was a place where you could "mine your own diamonds" (okay, we know there weren't going to be real diamonds there, but we still thought it would be fun for the girls). When we got the Butterfly Conservatory, we found out that it would cost us $30 to get in ($30 to look at butterflies?!), and that they would be closing in just an hour, so we decided to skip that one. And, to add insult to injury, we found out that the diamond mining place was going to be closing in an hour as well, and that because of our excursion to the Butterfly place, we were too far away to get there before they would close. Bummer. So, we consoled ourselves by stopping at a sweets shop and buying some amazing fudge...



Doesn't it look yummy? The flavors were chocolate caramel nut, orange creamsicle, strawberry cream, maple brown sugar, rocky road and serious peanut butter. I protested when Lou wanted to buy so much (over a pound!), but let me tell you, I sure wasn't protesting about eating it! Oh my goodness was it delicious!



Next we stumbled upon the Mohawk River, and since Lou just happended to have some fishing stuff in the back of the van, we decided to have a picnic dinner along the river while we did some fishing!

The girls watched as Daddy set up the poles...

...and they looked for fish while they ate their dinner (bagels, cheese, yogurt and carrots - all eaten separately, of course!)

When we were done eating, all of us took turns trying to get some fish (Here's Josephine helping Daddy to "organize" his tackle box). I was the only one to catch a fish, but alas, just as I was pulling it out of the water, it flipped off the line and swam away!

So that is the end of Day #4 or our staycation. Tomorrow we are off the Thunder Island!