Day Trip - Spelunking and Hiking

It's nice to ease into the hustle and bustle of another hectic seminary semester. Monday being Labor Day, us seminarians have the weekend free. A few of my classmates and I drove about an hour southwest of St. Louis to tour the Meramec Caverns and to do some hiking in the Meramec State Park, which itself contains something like 40 caves.

Earlier this week, word got around the seminary that a group of us were going "spelunking" during the free weekend. While the definition of "spelunk" is to "explore natural caves," I guess it's true that we did go spelunking. But when I think of spelunking, Meramec Caverns don't come to mind... the caves are at least mostly natural. But the artificial lighting, entrance fee, concrete walkways, and gift shop make it seem less than worthy of the adventurous word "spelunk."

But anyhow, our underground excursion was quite interesting. The place is truly a cheesy roadside tourist trap, but behind all the goofy gimmicks, the caves really are spectacular.

And the nearby State Park offers a lot of hiking, "spelunking," and camping opportunities. It was a beautiful day, and a great day trip.

Oh, by the way, our group consisted of myself and the following deacons: Johnson Lopez, Marco DeLoera, Kevin Vogel, and James Weeder.

-Jason