That’s a great story! My mother is terrified of bats. One evening when she & my father were out walking a bat landed on her head & played in her hair for a second.
On homeschooling: when we lived in Athens, OH I was asked by a homeschool mom to sign off on their end of the year report. You had to have a licensed teacher do that. I was so impressed with that homeschooling group. So many cool field trips, in depth study of various things.....just really creative & academic. Changed my whole way of thinking on homeschooling.
We went on a cave tour twenty some years ago and being a guided tour, it was all set up for us to oo and ah.
The highpoint was at the end, we stopped and got the last bit of lore the guide had for us and added, we'd been in dim lighting the whole time, but I'll now turn off the lights for a few .... click.
I have read in books about dark so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face ... but I never experienced it ... until that click.