Onyx Cave

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After Cosmic Caverns and lunch, we opted to see a second cave. It wasn’t on our original itinerary, but the rain had forced a change in plans. Onyx Cave became our afternoon destination. It has been famous since 1891…and there is considerable damage that has accumulated over the years.

The first part of our tour was self-guided with headphones that described things at each stop. The second part was a guided tour.

The lighting in the cave was not as good as in other caves I have visited, including Cosmic Caverns, but it is still possible to get reasonable pictures. Sometimes the damage (sawed off stalactites and soda straws) revealed the inner structure of the formations. The cave is damp but many of the formations have been touched often over the years…so they have a dry look.

I think my favorite cave tour this year is Onondaga Cave that I toured back in April (posts one and two).

Cosmic Caverns

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Last weekend we made an overnight trip to Arkansas as an early birthday celebration for my daughter. We picked her up at 8 AM at her house in Springfield MO (seeing what she means about her native plant garden being overwhelmed by grass).

Our plan had been for a hike at a state park in the morning, but it started sprinkling on the way there and was raining hard when we got to the park. We quickly decided to head to Cosmic Caverns. The parking lines there are made with bat stencils!

There were steep steps that reminded me of caves I toured as a child.  Now many caves have replaced their stairs with long ramps that make the cave more accessible.

The cave lighting was good, but the guide’s flashlight was sometimes needed to highlight features…and the black light flashlight provided a different perspective of some of the formations.

The cave was discovered in 1845 and there is damage that has occurred over the years. It is still a beautiful place to visit, and I enjoyed seeing how well my phone captured the cave formations.

Fantastic Caverns

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Fantastic Caverns is a great place to visit in the summer since the cave is 60 degrees all year long. We arrived a little before 10 AM and got tickets for 10:30 since there was a large school group at 10. During the wait, I bought some goat milk soap in the gift shop and looked at the mineral, quilt, and other artifact displays in the visitor center.

At 10:30 we walked out of the visitor center, down a ramp, and got on the tram that would take use through the cave.

I managed to take more pictures of the entrance (man-made) as we started our tour than I did during my previous visits. There is a lot of Viriginia Creeper on the rock face.

I used the ‘night scene’ setting on my Canon Powershot SX730 HS (my oldest camera!) because it is easier to hold than my phone. The lighting in the cave is relatively good and the guide illustrated several ways lighting of the cave has changed over the years. This was my third visit, and this guide was probably less experienced that my previous visits. (click on any image below to see a larger version).

This was the first visit to the cave for my daughter and the second for my husband. We all agreed that it is an excellent option for visitors that are not physically able to do other caves. We are already planning a visit to a cave that offers ultraviolet light tours…but that requires being able to walk around on your own with a headlamp and googles!

Zooming – April 2025

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Springtime photography….is April the best month? It seems like that might be true this year. The photographs were taken at the Springfield Botanical Gardens, my yard, the Missouri State University Campus, my daughter’s yard, Onondaga Cave, and 2 volunteer activities. There were so many images to choose from; I selected 23. I used three different cameras – iPhone 15 Pro Max, Canon Powershot SX730 HS, and Nikon Coolpix P950. Enjoy the slideshow!

Onondaga Cave (2)

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Onondaga Cave is a wet cave. That means many of the formations are still active and the air in the cave is very moist. There is an airlock where the tour begins and ends. There are salamanders in the cave, but their numbers have declined with the bats (White Nose Syndrome); the salamanders eat the bat droppings and there are not enough to sustain as many salamanders and before. We didn’t manage to see any.

There is a river that runs through the cave. At one point you can hear the water moving but when you look at it from above it seems very still! They know where the water goes but not where it comes from!

On the way home we stopped at Bennett Spring State Park near Lebanon MO. It was raining so the only picture I took was of a painted glass window! We drove down to where the spring emerges and then back to I-44 along a road through the forest….lots of dogwoods in bloom in the understory. It was a grand finale to the day trip even with the rain!