Lions, Tigers and Caves oh my!
Saturday I got up early and headed to The National Tiger Sanctuary. Compared to Turpentine Creek in Eureka Springs Arkansas I would rate them about the same. Neither one you can get really good photographs at due to fencing.
I didn't even know the tiger sanctuary was there until a week ago. They moved to their current location less than a year ago and were still in the process of building some new enclousers.
At The National Tiger Sanctuary you get to see the big cats up close and have opportunities to feed them which is really cool. I got there and there was a big group of boy scouts so they gave me a private tour after the regular tour so I could get some more pictures. The big cats were really beautiful they had tigers, white tigers, lions, black panthers and cougars. I can't say I had a favorite, but while I've been around a lot of tigers, this was my first time seeing a white tiger in person and they are really beautiful.
After that I went to Smallin Civil War Cave, which I had never been to before. The entrance to the cave is really beautiful and it is the 2nd largest in Missouri. The path through the cave is wheel chair accessible and very easy to walk if you have kids or are handicap.
The two biggest highlights of the cave to me is the entrance and a creek flowing through the cave. They said in the summer the creek can go dry, which would really take away a lot of the appeal of the cave in my opinion. So I would highly recommend going in a season when the creek would be active.
As far as formations go, don't expect much because there isn't! The ceiling, floor and walls are pretty bare and flat. There are a few soda straws, a natural stone dam, some small fossils in the cave roof and a couple small waterfalls. On our tour we saw a little bit of cave wildlife. We saw a crayfish, bat and a couple cave salamanders.
I only took the basic tour and didn't take the crawling tour because I wasn't dressed for it and wasn't going to take my Nikon D7000 in those conditions. Normally I shoot with adventures with my Nikon D5100, but my D7000 is much better in low light. I didn't even edit my photos, just converted the RAW images to .jpeg and uploaded them. If I was going to do the crawling tour I'd probably use my Kodak Playsport, but I need to download a bunch of stuff from it. I still have video from the Wilson's Creek Civil War reenactment on it!
After Smallin Civil War Cave I went to Riverbluff Cave. It's closed to the public, but they have a museum there open to the public. Unfortunately I should have payed a little more attention to the website because on Saturdays it's only open by appointment. I wasn't really impressed by the building, it looked more like a maintenance shed than a museum. Which is how I discovered it was by appointment only on Saturdays, because when I got there I wasn't sure I was in the right place and went to their website on my phone to make sure I was.
I have been hitting the discount deals again and tried two new places. St. George's Doughnuts in Springfield which I would rate as excellent! When I got there the place was packed! With a line going out the door. When I got my doughnuts I know why, they were some of the best I've ever had! Friendly service, lots and lots of choices and they even had some Man Vs. Food size doughnuts I just couldn't pass one of those up!
I didn't even know the tiger sanctuary was there until a week ago. They moved to their current location less than a year ago and were still in the process of building some new enclousers.
At The National Tiger Sanctuary you get to see the big cats up close and have opportunities to feed them which is really cool. I got there and there was a big group of boy scouts so they gave me a private tour after the regular tour so I could get some more pictures. The big cats were really beautiful they had tigers, white tigers, lions, black panthers and cougars. I can't say I had a favorite, but while I've been around a lot of tigers, this was my first time seeing a white tiger in person and they are really beautiful.
After that I went to Smallin Civil War Cave, which I had never been to before. The entrance to the cave is really beautiful and it is the 2nd largest in Missouri. The path through the cave is wheel chair accessible and very easy to walk if you have kids or are handicap.
The two biggest highlights of the cave to me is the entrance and a creek flowing through the cave. They said in the summer the creek can go dry, which would really take away a lot of the appeal of the cave in my opinion. So I would highly recommend going in a season when the creek would be active.
As far as formations go, don't expect much because there isn't! The ceiling, floor and walls are pretty bare and flat. There are a few soda straws, a natural stone dam, some small fossils in the cave roof and a couple small waterfalls. On our tour we saw a little bit of cave wildlife. We saw a crayfish, bat and a couple cave salamanders.
I only took the basic tour and didn't take the crawling tour because I wasn't dressed for it and wasn't going to take my Nikon D7000 in those conditions. Normally I shoot with adventures with my Nikon D5100, but my D7000 is much better in low light. I didn't even edit my photos, just converted the RAW images to .jpeg and uploaded them. If I was going to do the crawling tour I'd probably use my Kodak Playsport, but I need to download a bunch of stuff from it. I still have video from the Wilson's Creek Civil War reenactment on it!
After Smallin Civil War Cave I went to Riverbluff Cave. It's closed to the public, but they have a museum there open to the public. Unfortunately I should have payed a little more attention to the website because on Saturdays it's only open by appointment. I wasn't really impressed by the building, it looked more like a maintenance shed than a museum. Which is how I discovered it was by appointment only on Saturdays, because when I got there I wasn't sure I was in the right place and went to their website on my phone to make sure I was.
I have been hitting the discount deals again and tried two new places. St. George's Doughnuts in Springfield which I would rate as excellent! When I got there the place was packed! With a line going out the door. When I got my doughnuts I know why, they were some of the best I've ever had! Friendly service, lots and lots of choices and they even had some Man Vs. Food size doughnuts I just couldn't pass one of those up!
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