Generations of my in-laws have stayed in the same county in southeastern Minnesota, where sinkholes and caves are part of family conversation.
My wife’s grandfather’s sister’s husband (OK, Libby’s great-uncle) was a man named Joe Pettey, who was the first to discover what became known as Mystery Cave.
Now part of the state park system, Mystery Cave is open to the public, but not many have the inside scoop like I do.
There are a couple of stories about how Joe Pettey found that cave. The story I like is that they were searching for a missing pig that had fallen into a sinkhole and discovered that it was the entrance to his future hobby and side business: Mystery Cave.
The actual cave is about 15 miles long, but the guide says the whole ground is “like Swiss cheese around here,” and it’s quite likely that the estimated 10,000 caves are interconnected somehow.
It was a mysterious and chilly tour, as all cave tours tend to be. (If you go, wear a jacket.) Some will become hooked on caves from that tour and become future spelunkers.
As for me, an hour was enough. I’ve heard about the cave for years and was glad to have finally seen it myself—curiosity satisfied.
Where did you go this summer that was different?
