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Show ck Mj I fZ lCC By CAROL LEMON J cided to visit a natural wonder won-der we hadnt explored to date Lehman Caves. One daughter's school class had visited the Caves last year. I've never been too enthralled enthral-led with caves. I like to see the sky and feel the fresh air and sunshine around me. I sometimes get a creepy, almost suffocating feeling in a cave, however daughter reassured me that all would be well. I mentioned that I'd heard that an earthquake fault bisected the Cave. Again I was reassured when she said that the last quake was a long time ago, and it only partly filled up one room in the Cave anyway. "Wonderful," "Won-derful," I grunted, and off we went. I was still a little jittery as we prepared to enter, but We live in a beautiful part of our state. At times it may take some doing to find the beautiful things, perhaps when the wind fills the air with stinging dust, or in early spring when muddy slush detours de-tours our thoughts from pleasant things. Butinmid-April Butinmid-April the beauty literally reaches out and grabs us as we walk by. Everything is new and growing. Trees don their prettiest pastel gowns. Bright reds and yellows line the sidewalks and lawns sparkle with dandelion jewels. The - ranges should be beautiful this year lots of green and riots of the shortlived short-lived flowers that so briefly i color the desert. We saw a cactus out west last year that must have had a hundred crimson blooms. It was a genuine work of art. Our part of the world is scenic and full of wonders. The area around Rock Corral Cor-ral is as scenic as any in Zion or Bryce. The mountain moun-tain canyons are green and lush and provide many types of recreation or invite quiet moments. The Mineral Range . displays beautiful rock of all descriptions. It's all there if we look for it. Last week we finally de- when I saw there were several sev-eral toddlers going through with our group, I told myself my-self that if they could make it so could I. As we walked, walk-ed, the guide explained how the cave had been formed over ov-er the eons. As we clustered clust-ered in a large cavern he snickered as he turned off the lights to demonstrate the utter helplessness we feel in total darkness. I clutched clutch-ed Keith and when the lights slowly returned, was embarrassed embar-rassed to find myself cutting off the circulation in a stranger's left arm! He smiled understandingly, but I was careful thereafter to look before I clutched. I marveled at the giant stalactites and the thousands . of years it took them to reach their present size at the growth rate of one inch per hundred years. How brief our season of life seems when compared to some of nature's wonders. I appreciate the early explorersightseers explor-ersightseers of the cave who, using candles for light, crawled along on their bellies bel-lies and marveled at the beauty of the dimly lit cavern. cav-ern. Yes, we do live in a beautiful beauti-ful part of the world and what better time to explore it than in the spring. |