Day 4 - Playing in Meramec

 We love experiencing caves and canoeing, so we decided to schedule this day to indulge in those. We scheduled a tour of Meramec Caverns for first thing in the morning and a float trip in a canoe for noon. Love this sign!

 

We had our pick of parking spots because we arrived so early. We went in and waited for the fun to begin. We were really glad we signed up for the first tour of the day, as it was a relatively small group. By the time we were finished, the place was packed!

This has nothing to do with the cave tour or with Frank and Jessie James, who were known to use the cave as a hideout. Rather, the guides use this as a distraction to keep the tour groups together while everyone comes together. And it is kind of fun :)

 

The tour included a lot of information about the history - including the early owner who responded to discovering a new hole in the cave by tossing in a stick of dynamite to open things up. Needless to say, today's cave bears little resemblance to the cave before being officially discovered.

Depiction of Frank and Jesse James who hid out here after robbing a train. Deputies followed them to the mouth of the cave and decided to wait them out, not knowing the brothers knew about a secret exit out of the cave.

Stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.

 

These soda straw formations are so cool!

As is this guy...

 

Stalactites at the top and stalactites on the bottom will potentially grow together to form a column.

Amazing reflections...

 

To be honest, I don't recall exactly what this was, but I included it because it looks cool.

Meanwhile, in the Wine Room... grape clusters on the walls...

And a Wine Table formation in the middle, it is supported by the pole because an unsupervised child once climbed on it, causing a small crack - and they aren't taking any chances.

It all finished with a light show...

Kate Smith performed "God Bless America" here in 1946, and the tour ends with the light show and recording of her performance.

With the tour complete, we went back to our KOA to make lunch then headed back up to participate in the float trip. You can rent a canoe, raft, kayak, or tubes. We went with the canoe. They loaded us into a bus. You could tell we were amateurs, we just had a day pack. Others brought coolers, fishing gear, huge tote bags, and so on. We had water, our lunch, and sunscreen, so we were good to go.

 

Early on we paddled to get in front of the other groups, and before long we had the river mostly to ourselves.

We saw the occasional turtle sunning on a log, but they spook very easily.

 

It was a beautiful day to be on the river. It was just over 100 degrees when we finished. I survived by splashing water on my arms and legs, wearing a hat most of the time, wading in at lunch, and reapplying sunscreen.

I swear we saw more green - and more water - on this trip than in a year back home in Roswell.

After we had broken away from the groups and passed the beaches filled with people blasting their music, we found a quiet place to pull our canoe up and enjoy a sandwich.

The river was very calm, and there were places that were so shallow our paddles hit the bottom. We did have to steer around some logs, boulders, and such, but it was an easy paddle.

It was so peaceful and relaxing. Just amazing

Swallows gathering mud to make nests...

And before we knew it, it was time to beach our canoe and head back to our KOA for a shower, laundry, smoked ribs dinner, and a few hours of watching fireflies. Fogginess in this picture is due to the waterproof case I was using. I was very pleased that I was not too awkward when I got out of the canoe :)