WW: Meramec Cavern {Linky}

Meramec Cavern was my favorite stop on our trip to Missouri. You can camp there, but we camped a ways away at a KOA. 

We stayed in a cabin because it has been so rainy.

We were excited to go cave exploring. It got to 50 degrees in the cave. This was the boy's 2nd cave that they've been in. I made sure I grabbed our headlamps. Travis was laughing at us because he refused to wear one.

Headlamps fit better on boy hair. We're all looking up because otherwise you just see light in the photo.

There is just so many neat formations inside this cave! The cave is 400 million years old. It's slowly formed from limestone. In the past Native Americans used the cavern system for shelter. 

These formations look like grapes. They call the room in the cave, "The Wine Room". The area is known for their grapes and wine. Sadly we were not served wine.

This spot actually looks twice the size. 1/2 of that is water - a reflection. 

Have you been cave exploring?

 

Wind Cave National Park

We decided on our trip to take the boys to their first cave ever. I was excited for them.

I was also nervous because Isaak got very little sleep the night before, and it was during what is sometimes nap time. He's 5, but still sometimes takes a nap. Both of our boys have been sleepers. Mica more so than Isaak slept a lot. It was vacation, who needs sleep on vacation anyway? Daddy is one of those go, go, go people. He plans somethings for every minute of the day.

There also wasn't any bathroom in the cave. No food, or drinks either. I has them eat, drink and go potty before the cave experience. Thank goodness I thought to bring their jackets! It was cold down there.

One of the most hillarious parts of our trip (you can see the other comical part here) was this moment.

I told Isaak that the cave started right here:

He looked for the cave to start in the trash can. The tour guide looked at him oddly. I told the group what I had told him. They all laughed.

This is where the cave actually started. Can you believe that a kid used to jump in this hole to roam around the cave by himself? You can feel wind outside the hole.

We of course went in a different way. Mica nominated himself as a leader; when our tour guide asked for one. He drove me nuts! He kept saying to us, "No one can go before me! I'm the leader." One time of that is fine, fifteen times of that is a bit much! I kept telling Mica that if he didn't stop with the leader stuff, I was going to become the leader. Discipline is hard when you are trapped in a cave.

The tour guide told us about the boy who discovered the cave. His hat blew off in the cave entrance; they never did find it. My boys thought that they would be the ones that would discover this mysterious hat. I heard about that the whole time we were in the cave as well.

We asked if any bats lived in the cave. Her answer was that they have never seen any life forms in there. Most of the ceilings looked like this:

It's a really pretty cave. We had a good time overall. I really liked our tour guide. If you go to this park, you do need to visit a cave. Really that is it's main attraction.

Guess who fell asleep once we hit the car? This is a rarity. Yes my boys are good sleepers, but they have never been good sleepers in the car.