I've enjoyed visits to caves a number of times over the years. I think the last was Ruby Falls near Chattanooga. When I was in college, I went spelunking in caves with the Explorers Club. I had to slither through some tighter spots.
There's an extensive sandstone cave system in western Pennsylvania, Laurel Caverns, that may soon become the state's first underground state park.
Elevators don't normally bother me; what I find frightening is unconfined high places. Those two things once intersected in a downtown Pittsburgh building where I worked. I was stuck between floors in an elevator and learned that a side panel could be opened for access. The maintenance people stopped the elevator in the adjacent shaft next to the one I was in and opened the access panels in both to get me and a couple of other people out. There was nothing much but air in the intervening space, except for a steel beam about shoulder height that we had to pass under to get to the other elevator. I gripped that beam so tightly as I ducked under it that it should still have fingerprints indented in its surface.
Big Al
