Day 6 2001.12.01
My wife is starting to get antsy and wants to get to Phoenix soon. We start out with a plan to drive all day with no fixed stops and a target of Oklahoma City for Zzzzzzzz's.
We gas up the guzzler with CHEAP gas
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It didn't take long for our plans to change, of course. All along the roads were signs for FANTASTIC CAVERNS Warm 60°! The first had appeared yesterday, but the closer we approached, the number expanded exponentially. Soon there were [LARGE] signs every half mile or so, practically promising the return of youth should you take but one of their tours.
How could we resist? After all, it is America's only ride-through cavern. Yes, your entire tour is in the comfort of a air-conditioned (i.e. open) trailer pulled by a fancy red jeep.
Waiting for 25 minutes in the waiting room / GIFT SHOP we boned up
on the history of the cave. It was discovered in 1862 by a farmer hunting on his land. He kept it a secret during the Civil War because he was neutral and didn't want it confiscated by either side. (Caves, it seems are
very useful in primitive warfare.) After the war he advertised to have it explored and the first group to respond was a ladies' athletics group. So twelve women were the first to explore his cave. They left their names on
a wall quite a ways in where they still can be seen today. (Amazingly, considering what happened later.) They entered wearing full-length skirts but without the hoops through a tiny hole next to the present-day exit.
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As I said, this is a drive-through cavern. That means big. There were tours until around WWI, then it closed for a while. It reopened clandestinely during prohibition as a speakeasy. That was a roaring success until a shooting brought the public gaze firmly upon it. Closed again. In the 1940s a euphemistically titled vigilante group (i.e. KKK) rented it out as a meeting space. As "interest dwindled in those activities" in the 1950s it was abandoned again.
Finally in the 1960s, the man who "brought the Ozarks to the world" bought the cavern & it opened as Fantastic Caverns. There were country music concerts in the "amphitheater room" every weekend that attracted 150-900 people. Yes, there was enough room. Plus some.
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The size of this cave was awesome, but the formations were not as nice as the ones in Merengo Cave. My wife was impressed, though, and that's what counts. My daughter & I plan to go on a caving trip at some point in the future to hit some of the 5700 caves in Missouri, and many in Ohio, Indiana, PA, NY, NM, etc....
Cave guides love to tell you about how slowly the formations grow. There was a built-in study in this one, tho. In 1960 a farmer drilled a well. He hired a surveyer to make sure he didn't hit the cavern. Yeah, right.
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The guide was also free with his jokes about whacking one's head (especially his own) and proclaimed as we went into the cavern at break-neck(as it were) speed "I'll point out the low spots on the ceiling with my spotlight. After that, my job is done."
Back on the road, we reschedule and aim for Tulsa, OK. As we cross
into Oklahoma, we stop at a visitors center with much dead fauna.
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We stop in Tulsa at a nasty Days Inn. The only thing going for it was a local AOL line so I could post several days worth of logs. I actually unplugged several fire hazards before we went to bed.
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