Cooling Off

Arkansas Scenic 7 Byway's northern terminus is in Harrison.  Harrison was only an hour drive away from the Branson area where we had campgrounds reservations at Baxter Park (Corps of Engineers park on Table Rock Lake) near Lampe, MO.  We couldn't check-in to our site there until 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 15th.  So, we decided to stay the night at Parker's RV Park just outside of Harrison.  On the way to Harrison on Scenic 7, we passed a huge sign for Mystic Caverns and Crystal Dome (http://www.mysticcaverns.com/).
It was very hot when we arrived late afternoon on the 14th at Parker's RV Park and the forecast for the 15th was for temps in the mid 90's with high humidity (sounds like home).  The morning of the 15th we decided to cool off in a cave.  We asked for a late check-out at Parker's, which they agreed to.  Back tracking on Scenic 7 led us to the cave.  We had a short wait for the tours to start.

Tim found a bench in the shade to wait for cave tour

The cave operators said the temp in the cave was low 60's, which sounded great to us.  Northern Arkansas and southern Missouri  have thousands of caves.  The area is CAVE CAPITOL.

Mystic Cavern contains numerous formations, which have names depending on who is looking at them.  Our young tour guide did a great job pointing our features and telling stories.  Young and old (us) enjoyed.

Drape formation

Icicles

Looks like worms

Moonshiners once used the cave.  Smoke damage from the still

Colorful formation

Dinosaur leg bones

Crystal Dome is a short cave, but it has an eight story room.  It was enormous.

After our cave tours, we headed back to the RV park for our short trip to the Branson area.