There are 2 parking lots in the park for visiting the cave - 1 lot is located on the main entrance road into the state park and the other one is up on the bluffs just above the cave. If you park at the lower lot, you have to walk up a long flight of stairs to get to the cliffs and then go down another set of stairs to the path along the river.
We parked at the upper lot this morning and walked down to the trail along the Ohio River.
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When we're going on sightseeing walks like today, we tell Tinker we're going "hiking" and he's ready to go.
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We followed the trail along the Ohio River
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to the entrance to Cave-in-Rock.
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Cave-in-Rock was mapped by a French explorer in 1739 and Lewis and Clark passed through here during their expedition. According to legend
(some true and some unproven), the cave was a hiding place for river pirates and bandits.
When you first start to walk into the cave it looks really dark in the cavern,
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but it isn't totally dark back in the cave because of the light coming from the top entrance to the cave. The top entrance has been covered with a locked grate.
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While we were in the cave a mother, daughter and grandmother came in and we exchanged taking photos of each other.
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We let Tinker walk up on the rock ledge back to the entrance of the cave
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and Mike lifted him down. Tinker was so excited he ran straight ahead to the end of his leash and startled some people coming down the trail to the cave. One woman actually jumped and yelped, she thought some animal was running out of the cave. Her friends laughed and kidded her about it. Mike and I still get a laugh out of it when we talk about it.
We walked along the path south of the cave
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before heading back to the stairs and up to where the car was parked.
Before going back to the campground, we drove back into town and drove around taking photos.
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| From Cave-in-Rock, IL |
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Mike took this photo of our motor home as we were driving up the hill in the campground.
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Thunderstorms were forecast for this afternoon and we started hearing thunder about 4:00. We loaded clean clothes and towels in our "shower" bags and walked over to the bath house to take our showers before the rain came.
That particular thunderstorm went around us, but a little after 7:00 we started to see lightning and the thunder sounded really close. Mike took Tinker outside to walk him and while they were outside the wind really got strong. Mike started to put up the awning and the wind was so strong, he called me to come out and help him. Just as I walked outside the rain hit and was it ever cold. I held onto the awning while Mike loosened the arms and was able to roll up the awning. Mike had hooked Tinker's leash to the picnic table when he started to put up the awning and Tinker was now standing up on the top step trying to get out of the rain. By the time we got the awning put away and all three of us back inside, we were all very wet and cold. The thunderstorm only lasted for about 40 minutes and then was gone.
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