Sunday July 10 (Niagara Caves)

I managed about five hours sleep before waking up to find it had rained early on. After an early lunch we headed out to go to Niagara Caves in the small village of Harmony, MN. This is to the south east of Rochester about an hour's drive away. The weather did look a bit gloomy but it did not rain again.

The drive took us through lots of corn and bean fields and, on the return trip we passed many dairy farms. As we approached Harmony, it was obvious we were in Amish country. there were a few road signs and a lane for the horse drawn carriages.

We arrived at the caves and put a warm layer of clothing on as the temperature is about 48 F down in the caves. We had to wait about 15 minutes for the next group to go so had a look round the gift shop and I purchased a fridge magnet, I was tempted by the tie dye t-shirt but decided my case was full enough, lol!!


The caves were discovered in 1924 when some pigs disappeared down a sinkhole. When the farmer's helpers descended on ropes they found the cave system and the three pigs were still alive! The caves were opened up by a professional and it took ten years to prepare them for public viewing. They run underneath agricultural land.

We started by descending a couple of staircases to take us down into the caves, we had to remember that everything we went down we had to come up again!!! Our first stop was at the Wishing Well on the way to a 60 foot waterfall inside the caves. There is quite a flow over it and when it rains hard it increases significantly, the caves were named Niagara after the waterfall. We walked on and would descend a total of 250 steps, drop to 200 feet underground and cover half a mile to the furthest cave. We would have to retrace our steps to return to the surface!

We had various things pointed out to us along the way and, of course, I took some photos. Way back in time the area was under sea and there were some fossils embedded in the limestone. 

We saw many stalactites but no stalagmites due to the composition of the caves. There are three types of formations that the limestone forms and these depend on the distance underground.

We passed through an area of dry caves that are inactive, ie no build up of limestone. 

It is thought that some tilling of the soil above might have changed a water course. during the course of the walk, we descended further groups of steps, most were steep but the all had handrails. 

We passed a formation called "The Titanic" due to its shape and walked through a 300 foot passageway called "The Grand Canyon". The ceilings were high in this area from 80 foot at one end to 100 foot at the far end. 

Some of the passages were quite narrow and where they were active also fairly wet. in many places the ceiling was quite low and even I had to sometimes duck my head!

The final two caves were active again and very wet. We saw some carrot stalactites here, so called because of their shape. We also saw some of the straw like stalactites, so called because they have a hole through the centre. We had seen some earlier that had been growing for about 80 years and were very tiny, these had been growing for more than 700 years. 


We also saw an 8 foot high stalactite, the tallest in the caves. It had actually formed a column but a workman managed to swing his ladder round to fast and he broke it off near the bottom.

The caves were interesting and they claim the be the tenth best in the US, I am not sure if this is true as I have been in much larger caverns when I visited Glenwood Springs, CO, last year.

On the return trip home we did a circuit that took us through the area where Joe was brought up and where some of his family still live. This took us through the town of Mabel, where they have Traction Engines. 

Then we passed through Spring Grove, where Joe went to school, it is a Nordic Town as some of the statues indicate. We travelled down Rooster Valley Road, where some of Joe's relatives used to live and his brother still does. We then turned onto the highway and stopped at the house he grew up in, his nephew has built a house behind it and now farms the land.


We headed for home via Houston but the Owl Centre there was closed! We stopped at a Kwik Trip garage for the restroom and some refreshments. This was in Rushford where Connie and Joe lived for a couple of years. Then it was back to Rochester after an interesting afternoon driving round rural south east Minnesota. We were only quarter a mile from the border with Iowa at one point and not that far from the well known home of an eagle cam, Decorah!!

It was then time to write the blog before supper, shower and bed!! I go on to Chicago tomorrow and it has been a great stay with Connie and Joe plus the five fur babies. It has not been long enough but it sure was good to catch up, also with Deb and Jo yesterday. Thanks again to Connie and Joe for putting me up and putting up with me, as always, I am very grateful!