Day 5 2001.11.30

After spending the night in Louisville, KY we get up and realize we're still very far away from where we're going. Gosh, we say, we'd better get going. So a day of just driving.

We cross over the Ohio River from Louisville into Indiana.

(Pictures from the back seat by my daughter.)

We stop at the tourist information booth at the first rest stop in IN. I find some of the great motel coupons that have been giving us $90-$225 rooms for $35-$40. I come back to the car & snap a quick picture of my wife.

While in the info booth, I found pamphlets for several caves nearby. We make a decision (that sounds so simple after the fact) and head for Merengo Caves, only 10 miles off the interstate.

My daughter & I went through and were very impressed. It was much bigger than the one natural cave I'd been into before. (Not quite as pretty, though.) Most of the pictures look flat because of the flash, or are a bit blurry because of slow shutter speed and jiggly hands. Oh well. I'm new to the whole photography thing.

This is the entrance to the Blowing Bat Crawl, finally cleared out on June 14, 1992. It leads to the largest cave passage ever found in an Indiana cave. Unfortunately, you have to crawl on your belly for a good part of it and some places are so small you have to have your head sideways. Also, the river that carved out this cave still runs through parts of it, if only 6" deep.

All stalagtites start as soda straws. They're called that because they actually are hollow. The minerals in the water deposit along the edges, elongating the tube it flows through. Eventually, though, the water gets choked off at the end and then flows down the outside forming stalagtites.

The oldest formation in the cave, estimated at 500,000 years:

And some of the youngest showing how it all starts with water coming through cracks in the rock.

My daughter and I were very impressed.

On the road again.
And it's not even December!

On through Illinois where nothing much happened (I think... that was yesterday, after all...) to St Louis, Missouri.
An arch on the St. Louis side.

We continued on past St. Louis toward Joplin. Along the way we see signs for Meramec Caverns in Stanton, MO. There is such a build-up and my daughter is so happy with caving that we decide to see them in the morning and stay in their motel that night. Ha ha.

After arriving in Stanton in the last of the daylight, we follow the well marked trail 3 miles out of "town" to the entrance, which is CLOSED. Where's the motel?? We turn back and see a wonderful moon which I fail to capture for posterity (except for astigmatics). 

Well the motel wasn't actually at the caverns. After retracing our not-so-well-marked-from-this-direction trail in the dark, we find the motel across the expressway looking its age. After a brief investigation, we decide to go back east about 8 miles to a "larger" town for its motels and restaurants.

After arriving in St Clair, we can't find anything but sprawl, one gas station, and more sprawl. I ask for directions at the gas station and that only confuses the issue. "Go thru this light, then at the next light, not the flashing light, no, but the next four-way, real, light, turn left and there's 2 motels and a McDonald's..."

Well, one light and one flashing light later, there is nothing but miles of dark 2 lane road without even any houses. Bad directions? Practical joke? Whatever it is, we give up and skip town. We end up in Rolla, MO, in one of our favorite motel chains, Hampton Inn.

Day 5
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