Adam's Blog July 9th, Day 4!

We begin the day with two destinations in mind. Meramec Caverns and Ha Ha Tonka State Park. We get everything together and get ready to leave when I find the last oil change sticker and we are already about 3k over. Courtney eyes this and insists we immediately get an oil change so we spend the next part of the morning at Jiffy Lube. Luckily there was one near by and it had no line so this didn't put us back much.

Finally on the road and make our first stop at Meramec Caverns. This place is cool (literally as well since most caves are around 60 degrees) and reminds me of my trip to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky when I was young. These caves supposedly have a connection to the Dalton Gang as a hideout but that isn't nearly as interesting to me as all of the soda straws and other formations. The entryway has a ballroom where they have concerns and events occasionally. After a nice walk through the caves we reach a little seating area where we are told we will be viewing a finale. Let me be clear, I didn't expect much but the sound of the guide flipping the switches to change the lights and the over the topness of it are just too much. Still a cool trip and enjoyable.

Off we go to Ha Ha Tonka and quickly realize this side trip is going to take us too long so we decide to skip it and head to Springfield, MO for the night. Gideon is taking a nap and starts to wake up. Now, in case you missed it in Courtney's blogs, Gideon is a bit grumpy when he gets woken up. And by a bit grumpy, I mean he's like Jack Jack when he turns into that demon. After a lot of laughing and trying to not wake him up while doing so, he wakes up on his own. Crisis averted. As we get closer to the city, I see on the map a drive in zoo. There is much hemming and hawing but end up going. I head in to pay the admission. We can wait for 45 minutes for a guided tour or we can drive ourselves the girl checking me out informs me. Little did I know what hilarity would ensue from driving ourselves (I didn't want to wait).

We pull into the zoo area over a cattle grate and there are some bears in a cage a little bit off the road and roads are in poor condition at best. I am starting to think paying for this was stupid. Some deer are next, nothing special.I can't remember for sure what order the rest of it all came in because i was laughing too hard at Courtney and Abby screaming and Gideon's laughing. I remember that there was a bison that stood in the road to stop us from moving, walked over to the van and started scratching his face on the side view. This whole time Courtney is yelling a combination of No and What do I do? We finally get passed it to see a big, ugly cow of some kind staring at us. We drive around him but he menaces us the whole way. At some point there were emus that came trotting at us and came some more screaming. After so much laughing my side hurt, we head in to walk the other parts or the zoo and let everyone feed the giraffe. In the end, very worth it.

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