Blue Springs Photo Trip

    I was suprised by an email from Bruce Minkin on Wednesday March 17, 2010 wanting to know if I would be interested in a quick photo trip to Blue Springs Cave in Sparta, TN on Saturday.  Well....it took all of five seconds for me to make up my mind to tag along on this one.  I have been wanting to get into Blue Springs for years.  Bruce is an old friend of the owner of the cave and has been there many times.  Lonie, the owner had messed up his knee somehow and Bruce being an orthopedic surgeon had a brace for Lonie once we got there.

   It ended up being just Bruce, his son Alex, and myself from Asheville with Bruce's brother David and his son Patton.  Kind of a family affair.  David and Patton had driven in from Memphis that morning.  As we started through the "tourist entrance" I could kinda tell that David was in no shape to do much in the way of caving since he was huffing and puffing just walking up to the cave.  And indeed, he wanted to leave after 15 min or so.  At this point, Bruce took David back top side while Alex, Patton, and myself went on to the formation area.  It was too bad to because David was a professional photographer and I was hoping to get some tips from him.  Bruce quickly caught back up with us and we spent the next four hours in just two rooms taking pictures.  After a quick 20 min hike back out of the cave, we caught back up with David.

    After a fine Mexican dinner in downtown Sparta with Lonie and his family we trecked back to Asheville getting in at 3:00 in the morning.  A good time was had by all!  Pete Kirchner