August 10, 2024
Another kind of cool day, which is great. Our luck won’t last forever.
Today we went to Stark Caverns. They take groups in every 15 minutes — it is like an assembly line of people underground. One intersection has three directions and three groups meet up every 15 minutes — a group entering, a group leaving, and a group in the middle of the tour.
It was pretty awesome. I tried to take some nice photos – below are about half of them. The formations are nicely lit up and our tour guide was VERY knowledgeable.
There was a section of glassed-in cases with many artifacts from Native Americans that were gathered and are on display. Rows and rows of arrowheads, scrapers, and other tools the native people used. It is not allowed to take photographs of this collection, in order to show respect for these people who lived years ago.
This cave was different in that it actually slopes UP after entering, where most caves are mainly downhill. There are four miles of passageways in this cave, though we didn’t go on all of it. For an hour, we got a pretty good hike though. The last bit — 31 stairs up of various size/depth/etc about did me in. The guide shut off the lights at the top for about two or three minutes and we stood there in the dark. A very unique experience. Then she took out a handheld blacklight and showed how formations glowed under this kind of light. The offer “blacklight tours” also, but they were late in the day, so I opted for the “normal” tour.
You might be interested to know that we both got Senior Citizen rates — saved a whole $4. Can almost get one Starbucks drink for that, to share…
Well, I thought it was interesting… 🙁
Went for a short drive to the Lake of the Ozarks — a MASSIVE tourist trap. We didn’t get out of the car.
Had our one meal of the day at Whittle’s Pub, where we imbibed in stuffed tater tots (Tater Kegs), fried pickle spears, a cobb salad (guess who?), and a burnt ends sandwich. All good and very filling. Not sure what we will do with all the leftovers tomorrow…
And speaking of tomorrow, it is coming up soon. We will be driving to Grand Island, Nebraska — staying five nights there. So I am going to end this missive here.
Thanks for reading.
Kevin
