NY to AZ Day Three

Currently on the road in southern Missouri. We left Evansville, IN at 7:30 this morning, earlier than we had planned because bad weather was predicted – tornadoes had been sighted the day before - and we hoped to outrun twister. We hit some bad thunderstorms, but the sky is now bright blue. The scenery here is beautiful, and serves as evidence that we are finally creeping into the southwest: the air is drier, the trees are getting shorter and the bushes scrubbier, and lots of fields of yellow and purple wildflowers. Its quite windy. There isn’t much by way of sights to see out here except for cows, a lot of advertisements for fireworks at warehouse prices and super touristy things like wax museums and Six Flags.

The one exception are caves like the Meramec Caverns, the main attraction of the Meramec River Valley which we drove through. Originally a potassium nitrate mine discovered in the 18th century, the caves are now a tourists attraction due to visually stunning mineral deposits. The man who discovered many of the caverns, Les Dill, was also one of the first to use bumper stickers, or bumper signs as they were known in the mid 20th century. When visitors toured the caverns he gave them free bumper signs to attach to their cars, thereby promulgating knowledge of the caverns all across the United States. Due to the proponderance of caves - over 6,000 are surveyed in the state - Missouri is known as the 'cave state'.