Enchanted Cave Christmas!

If you are a long time reader of the blog, you know how I love "Caveman BBQ", known these days as the Cave Restaurant and Resort. If you're new around here, check out our visits from 2008, 2009, and 2012. We were in Pulaski County this past weekend to visit the museums of Fort Leonard Wood and to check out the holiday light display at The Cave. What a great day trip for the winter months!

I don't know how I'd never heard about this during the last three trips, but I guess since Francis was walking around with the fancy camera, the waitresses wanted to tell him everything about the place. The room behind this tiny little passage is where the moonshine still was back in the speakeasy days!

As usual, we got a crazy amount of food. If you think their desserts look amazing (they do), skip the appetizer because you will get a huge pile of food. I got the 4pc catfish and it came with bread, a salad, two sides, and hush puppies. No room for pie!

Right now the holiday dinner special is turkey or ham with potato, vegetable, soup or salad, bread, and pumpkin pie, pecan pie, or German chocolate cake for $16.99. Gary will stuff you like a turkey!

The whole cave is crammed with Christmas cheer, including all my favorite taxidermy. Do you know, I finally did the math, and it took Dave (the creator of this cave restaurant) 1,600 trips with a hand cart to haul 160 tons of rock out of this cave? And I'm still not sure if that's right, because the handcart next to the cougar says 160 tons, but the website says 2,160 tons.

We got out there just before they turned on the outdoor displays, and only got a peek from the main road as we were leaving, but it looks really neat. They even have hayrides from the parking lot to the restaurant. I recommend timing you arrival as close to dusk as possible, so you can still see the turnoff from Highway 7 to Rochester Road, but by the time you get to the cave the lights will be on.

All those framed photos are pictures of the creation of the cave and the building of the entrance/kitchen. And I almost forgot to mention this: The Cave has a new Stalagmite burger challenge! Someone alert Man vs Food! The burger is 4 lbs on a whole loaf of French bread, with 16 slices of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mustard, mayo, thousand island dressing, and you have to eat it with a pound of french fries and a 32 oz drink. I recommend the Cave Water, which is a cream soda with vanilla and chocolate vodka. If you manage to finish it, you get $50 worth of indigestion for free. Congratulations!

The cabins are only available in the summer now, as they had to replace too many busted water lines last winter, but the restaurant is now open year round! Be sure to check the website for seasonal hours, and call before driving out there if the weather is bad.