BEFORE and AFTER

No, Teddy wasn't the culprit, it was the dogs...but I thought it was funny that Teddy had to investigate.

Playing in the Leaves

Keep snapping pictures long enough, and you get some pretty interesting pics.

Penn Vacation - Penn's Cave

William and I have been to a few caves. They are always fascinating, but it's hard to get excited over the next one when you have already been to several. When I found out that Penn's Cave was only tourable by boat, I got way excited because we had yet to a cave in that fashion.

The cave is down this long flight of steps, and stays really cold all year long. The water is so cold in fact the no fish actually live inside the cave...plenty at the mouth, but none inside. Here is a ceiling shot.

This is the inside of the next picture.

At one point all the lights were turned off and so we were left in complete darkness. I tell you, there is nothing quite so dark as a cave with no lights. Then they presented this pretty light show.

This is out the other side of the cave. Can you see the blue of the water? It was pretty cool because you could look down in the water of the lake we were turning around in and it was full of plant life, and then you see this line of teal/blue leading to the cave that is void of plant life and really stands out against the murky brown of the rest of the lake.

As we were turning around to have another go through the cave (only backwords)we got a glimpse of the neighboring wild life refugee. Since leaving Idaho, we don't see too many elk these days.

The heart of the cave. Can you see it?

The end it near! The cave was so smoky because of the difference in temperatures between the outside of the cave and the inside of the cave.

I would say this cave is worth touring. We didn't do the wildlife exhibit, because let's face it, when you've been through the Yellowstone Bear World when bear can climb into the back of your truck, this just didn't seem that it would be up to par.

Penn Vacation - Bellefonte

During this trip we figured we would check out some bed and breakfast places. People always rave about them and we figured we would like to check out what the hype was all about. So here is the Reynolds Mansion. Isn't it cool?

We were the only guests that night so pretty much had the run of the place to ourselves. Needless to say, we played some pool down in the fancy billard room.

We even got a tour of all the other rooms because they weren't occupied. Throughout the house were four fireplaces, like this one, but with different tiles to represent the four different seasons of the year.

The hosts had two dogs who decided to join us for breakfast. One was all for pets and the other was still a little unsure of people.

Can you guess which of the dogs was used to cozening up to the guests for hopes of some table scrapes? The breakfast was absolutely amazing btw.

We highly recommend this place! Oh, we stayed in the garden room. Sorry, no pictures, you'll just have to go see for yourselves.

Penn Vacation - Visiting Ru

On the way up to State College, PA...yes, I thought it was a weird name for a city too.

Ru is always doing some amazingly crafty thing. I saw the result of one of her latest brainy ideas and had to take a picture. Now, just to find where I can do it :).

Ru and Russell introduced us to Rita's, apparently it is very popular in that region of the US. It was interesting. A slushie with ice cream is the best way to describe it. Here is Ru with Nazarie...it's she getting so big?!...Nazarie that is, Ru hasn't changed much since the last time I saw her.

This is Russell and Lex (it was my first time meeting Lex, he is such a happy baby, and he loved sharing dad's ice cream).