Route 66 Road Trip - Meramec Caverns - Jesse James Hideout

During a cross-country road trip I took in July 2010 with my boyfriend, Kurt, we found ourselves in St. Louis. After seeing the Gateway Arch and spending the night at the nearby Millennium Hotel, we left St. Louis with me at the wheel, tracking what used to be Route 66. It's always been a dream of mine to experience Route 66 -- what's left of it -- so I did some research in advance to discover what kinds of classic Route 66 stops remain in tact. I knew that one of those stops was not far to the west of St. Louis, and that fact was confirmed when we began seeing billboards for the stop -- Meramec Caverns, which is 55 miles west of St. Louis -- before we'd even left the city.

The billboards were amusing, reminiscent of the "South of the Border" signs you see on the way down the east coast to Florida. According to my road trip book, Meramec Caverns provide a quintessential Route 66 experience, so I was sold on stopping even without the onslaught of billboards. The Caverns are about 25 miles long -- the longest in the state of Missouri, which is home to a variety of caves and caverns throughout the Ozarks. As the lengthy string of billboards demonstrated, the original owner of the Caverns was an advertising genius. When he opened the Caverns to the public several decades ago, he apparently dressed his son-in-law up as a caveman and sent him to the top of the Empire State Building, where he publicly threatened to jump off unless everyone in the world visited Meramec Caverns. So of course I was immediately enamored with the place, and we followed the trail of very creative signs to exit 230, with my excitement mounting to near hysteria as we neared our destination.

After parking in a lot that was surrounded by fun things to do (e.g., panning for gold, boat tours of the Meramec River, zip lines running above the cars and the river, and an old-time candy shop), we entered the main visitors' center and bought tickets for the next tour. There was no wait, so we pretty quickly began what turned out to be the most awesome tour ever, led by a very adorable and sincere high school student named Zach. As soon as I met him and heard him introduce himself, I knew I wanted to bring Zach along with us so he could narrate our whole trip. Kurt was not on board for that idea, so I backed off.

It wasn't easy to control myself, though, because Zach won me over almost immediately when he started the tour by telling us that a little shack at the mouth of the cavern with a neon sign that reads "Meramec Cavern: Jesse James Hideout" (seen in the picture above) is wholly unconnected to both Meramec Caverns and Jesse James. In that case, you might wonder, why is it there? Simple -- the owner of the Caverns found the shack a mile down the river, took it (or, more accurately, stole it?), and decided it would add some Ozark charm to the pre-tour waiting area. Most tour guides might not be able to top that great opening fact, making the remainder of the eighty-minute long tour a bit of a let down. But not Zach. After showing us a large room (complete with disco ball) where a midwestern gospel choir gives a yearly concert to 3,000 people, he delivered another fact that made me wish I could put him in my pocket: Meramec Caverns is home to the only Foucault's Pendulum in the world that doesn't work, and they couldn't be prouder. Best...tour...ever! And there was still an hour of it to go!

Moving into the more "cave-y" parts of the Caverns, Zach explained that the front caves were originally formed when Union soldiers camped out in Missouri during the Civil War and dug a saltpeter mine there (behind enemy lines, so to speak). The soldiers mixed salt from the mine with crystallized bat guano to make very crude ammunition. Disgusting, but fascinating too, right? The Confederate soldiers (quite reasonably) got annoyed about how the Union guys were using the Confederates' own land and resources to make ammo used to kill them, so a group of Southern soldiers got together and destroyed the mine. As it turns out, one of those Confederates was Jesse James. Fast forward a few years to when Jesse and his brother were no longer serving their country, but instead were on the run after a big bank robbery. As the story goes, Jesse remembered the mine from his Civil War days and returned there to hide out with his brother, his horses, and the loot. The law enforcement guys tried to starve them out, but when 3 days passed and no one surrendered, they went in to find only the horses. Apparently Jesse & his brother figured out a way to escape through some type of "back entrance," probably swimming up an underwater river to its source. Don't you love the Ozarks?

Following up on that delightful tale, Zach also told us some great cave facts, including:

1. The world's 3rd largest stalagmite is in Meramec Caverns. It's gi-normous, and it's still growing.

2. One of the only 2 Ragonite formations in the world is found in the "Wine Room" at Meramec Caverns. The structure is a rock formation that's formed underwater and looks like a big table that's held up by 2 or more "legs" -- this one is 7 feet tall and has 3 legs (the water has subsided, so it's just standing in a room that's part of the tour). The "Wine Room" gets its name from the fact that there are cool little rock patterns on the walls that look like bunches of grapes. And, according to Zach, the name could also come from the fact that tourists are always "whining" (get it?...whine?...wine?...get it?) about the 58 steps you have to go up to get to it. Ha! He should take this show on the road, and I'd quit my job to become his groupie.

On our way to the Wine Room, Zach showed an older woman in a wheelchair the path to a ramp she could use to bypass the part of the tour involving steps, and promised her that we'd meet up with us on the other side. When some others started to follow her, he said "no, wait -- just that chick" (i.e., the lady in the wheelchair) was allowed to use the ramp. But in a southern twang, it somehow sounded genteel instead of offensive.

Other highlights of the tour included the Hollywood room, where Zach said "Hollywood came here" to film a 2-part episode of "Lassie" and some scenes from the movie "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Also, Kate Smith sang one of her first renditions of "God Bless America" in another spot called the Theater Room, where the rocks seem to cascade down from the wall like a huge stage curtain. In the audience for Kate Smith's performance were President Truman and other major political figures of the day. When the tour reached that room, we all sat on rows of benches facing the "curtains," and Zach treated us to 2 light shows. One, set to the Missouri Waltz, is pre-programmed. The other, to a recording of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America," is manually controlled and involves 18 light switches. Will Zach's talents never end? That show was actually really cool, especially because it ended with a special American flag light given to the owner of the Caverns by President Truman. Zach told us in advance that he was only allowed to leave it on for 15 seconds because "the bulb is expensive and it burns out real quick." You love him too, right?

Obviously, I never wanted to leave the Caverns. But we had a whole lot of driving left to do that day, so Kurt dragged me back to the Mini and we headed back to the highway, where one last billboard thanked us for stopping at Meramec Caverns and asked us to come again.  And with that billboard, an absolutely perfect and truly memorable road trip experience came to an end.