This morning we played and then headed out for the day’s planned activity, visiting Dan-ye-Ogof, also known as the “National Showcaves”. These are only about 20 miles from where we’re staying, but we’ve learned to go by drive time rather than distance. In reality it was about an hour of windy and hilly roads, with constant slow-downs and speed-ups and sudden stops to avoid hitting sheep. You can probably see where this is going.

15 minutes into the drive Millie said she felt sick. We told her to stop looking at her book and rolled down the windows. We stopped for a breather and she refused to get out, so we powered through. She continued to look at her book despite our many warnings.

I had a bag ready. She asked for the bag. I gave her the bag. She the held the bag 3 inches in front of her face and puked all down her chest, onto her legs, and into her car seat.

It was not our finest moment. She was understandably upset. Nick was frustrated that she wouldn’t stop looking at her book and missed the bag. I don’t deal well with puke and had to walk away to stop myself from also hurling. We managed to hold it together (somewhat) and I helped Millie change while Nick used the few wipes we had to clean the chunks out of the car. The seat was unusable but luckily we had this extra car seat harness thing and a bathing suit that could double as a shirt. She passed out immediately after the drama. The adults remained rattled.

We arrived at the National Showcaves, which, first of all, what a name. It sounds like they were taken to the global cave pageant and ranked against all other caves. Like Eurovision for underground passageways.

The place was weird. For some reason it also had a massive dinosaur exhibit with these dinosaur models everywhere.

The caves themselves were beautiful and Millie enjoyed the exploration aspect of going deep into them. Some had waterfalls inside, which we had never seen before and were super cool. Of course pictures do not do it justice since they can’t capture the smell of dampness, the cold air, and how loud the waterfalls were when enclosed in rocks.

The whole place had unnecessary sound design. As you walked through the caves there was a badly-acted radio play of loud voices reenacting the original cavers’ experience. The cave known has Cathedral cave had very loud choral music playing, at one point it was literally playing the wedding processional song. The fake dinosaurs had fake dinosaur sounds. Even the indoor racetrack-themed playground had fake racetrack sounds. What could have been a really peaceful afternoon felt like sensory overload, especially since we were already feeling sensitive from the morning.

We escaped the sounds in two places: first, at the top of the hill with this beautiful view. And second, with the Shetland ponies.

Otherwise our day was, honestly, just not great. Millie asked me for snacks every 2-5 minutes. She fell (using the word fall loosely here) on the playground and then acted like the lost the ability to walk. Eventually we just called it and went home, driving with the windows down and the air blasting to circulate out the smell of puke.

Things got better when we were home. Nick did bathtub laundry to wash the soiled clothes and car seat. We had a home cooked meal. Moods shifted.

The sun came out and we took an after dinner triple-decker walk around the local village.