Porter’s Cave or where is the keyhole?

By Matt Lair

 

On Saturday February 3’rd Paul, Melanie, George, Ken and your humble author traveled to Porter’s Cave. We met at Wal-mart (where else could we meet) in Madison Heights (Hog Town). We met with George in Snowden, piled into his vehicle with all our gear and off we went. Our plan was to eat breakfast at the Burger King at the intersection of Interstate 64 & Interstate 81. Thank goodness Melanie talked us into eating at the Country Cooking instead. It will have to be our breakfast stop when we travel in this direction from now on. After breakfast we traveled on to Porter’s

Once we got the key and got to the cave we had to change, and let me tell you it was frigid as we stood on the side of the road with temperatures in the teens and a 20 mph wind. Certain body parts were hidden for most of the day. You humble author then started to the cave. I didn’t quite remember the exact location so we had a scenic tour of the hillside. At least we can all say that we have seen most of that hillside. I just took us up the wrong side of the hill, but I realized what I had done very quickly. When we finally got to the cave entrance, we were close to frozen. I have never felt the inside of a cave feel so warm.

As we set off looking for the keyhole, we discovered many leads that your humble author had never been into as we looked for the keyhole. We explored high leads. We explored low leads and we found out one interesting thing about this cave. Everything leads back to the starting point. We kept going in circles on different levels and in different directions and we kept ending up where we started. Along the way we saw many pretty formations. A few of them we saw twice. One or two may have been seen three times. Don’t ask me how it happened but we never found the keyhole. I know it’s there but the question is where? I think most of the group was happy that we didn’t find it because we spent most of the trip in an upright walking fashion instead of crawling.

Upon exiting the cave we discovered that the temperature may have warmed up to the high 20’s and the wind had increased with the higher temperatures. It felt just as cold as it had in the morning if not colder. One member of our group commented on how he felt like a five year old again. After changing we headed into Lexington and had a wonderful Mexican meal. I believe that eating Mexican is required after every grotto trip.

As we headed back toward Big Island and Hog Town, George took us by Foam Hinge. This is an exact replica of Stone Hinge made out of foam blocks and it is out in the middle of nowhere. We commented on how some folks have too much time on their hands. After this George took us to the Devils Marble Yard. We just went to the parking spot for it as we were all to warm, full and tired to climb it.

And that’s the way it was. Would I lie to you? Matt Lair