In a more normal summer, many of us would be road-tripping, playing games in the car, stopping at restaurants and gas stations along the way, and visiting parks and lakes and the seashore. Some of us are still carefully making trips, masked and sanitizing our hands often, but they are tinged with worry, and it’s not quite the same.
It reminds me of a long camping road trip I once took, where we visited several national parks and two memorable and claustrophobic caves: Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Growing up in Maryland, a popular day trip was to Luray Caverns in Virginia. Now that I live in Wisconsin, it’s a tradition for the kids to go on a school field trip to Cave of the Mounds. Probably not this year, as we just got the news that school will be virtual for the time being. In all these caves, we were packed in with other people all next to each other, not worrying at all about viruses or staying six feet apart.
This week's show, "Going Underground," is all about that feeling of discovering what lies beneath. You’ll hear from some radical explorers, from cave divers to earthquake scientists. As we have to be so planned and deliberate in our actions these days, I hope you enjoy the interviews about creative wandering and exploration. We'll be back out there — or under there — someday soon.
–Shannon