A Fun Day Underground!

We had a great time traveling to Hannibal, Mo today to visit Cameron Cave! The crew of 10 left at 9am from St. John’s and had an uneventful 3-hour ride to Hannibal.

A great lunch at Sonic (we can’t wait until Bloomington gets theirs) with Drink Buddies, southern accents, lots of cicadas, chasing birds, great eats and full stomachs.

We headed south to the Mark Twain Cave and Campground just south of the town of Hannibal. The group spent some time in the Visitor Canter/Store while we waited for the Cameron Cave tour to start at 1:30p. Some of us tried to win a stuffed Angry Bird from the “Claw Game” and failed miserably.  Hunter bought a cow toy – not  a toy cow, a thingy that makes a cow noise when you turn it over. Oh so many laughs from that. Lots of great um, stuff, to look at and lots of stuff to pass on. The redneck purse made out of white-tighties was the most bizarre. Yes, you heard correctly.

We gathered at 1:30p to pick up our lanterns as the tour is done solely by lantern light. Cameron Cave is about as natural a tour cave as you can get. No electric lights, no paved path, no nothing! We joined with a family on vacation and followed our two guides on a short hike to the cave. The entrance of the cave is a small building that we gathered in first to hear a little about the rules and such. One of our guides liked to tell jokes throughout the tour. The tour lasted about an hour and a half and featured a maze of passageways, a quick crawl for anyone brave enough, occassional cow sounds, Cameron Cave history, and great time together. We brought our lanterns back to the Visitor Center, used the restroom, ignored the LOUD cicadas and jumped in the van to head to Lovers Leap.

We spent a short while at Lovers Leap which has a great view overlooking Hannibal and the Mississippi River. We grabbed bottles of water, a few bags of Cracker Jacks and sat down to a short devotionals featuring some verses from Psalm 23 and 26, A good discussion! We closed in prayer and jumped in the van to head for dinner in Springfield.

After a couple hours of driving we stopped off at Godfather’s Pizza in Springfield. Taco Pizza, Barry Manilow, experimenting with phone camera, cone heads, bathroom hallways swinging doors, ice-ice-ice-ice and more ice. A great dinner and then an hour more and we arrived back at St. John’s a few minutes later than we planned. A lot in one day but everyone had a great time!

Check out some pictures from our trip below!

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