I got to spend this past Saturday with my sons at the Lost Canyon Cave and nature trail in Ridgely, Missouri. 
Also saw the Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum there. I thought the tickets were a little pricey, but turned out to be worth it. The cave tour is with electric golf carts, much better for my knees. It was a much smaller cave than I was expecting, but the trail was beautiful, with several impressive waterffall.
A word of warning, however. Even if you buy tickets in advance, you have to stand in line to wait for the next available golf cart. They were slammed this Saturday, and we ended up standing in line for an hour and a half. Traffic pulling into the place was backed up almost to the highway. The staff seemed baffled as to why they had such a huge crowd, and I noticed it slacked off later in the afternoon. But my advice would be to go early. They said they normally only had a crowd like this on Labor Day. So of course, it would be the day we chose to go.
The cave has a little bar inside where you can buy drinks and snacks (expensive, of course).
They also had a couple of prehistoric skeletons, one a bear (left) and one a cat like a sabertooth (left), which I didn’t know we had in North America.
Of course, there were also impressive rock formation, though no stalactites or stalagmites.
From the Welcome Center, the cart follows a nature trail winding around through a whole series of waterfalls, about six or seven I think.
and past some amazing rock formations.
The Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum might have been the most worthwhile part of the trip.
According to the shuttle driver it’s the largest in the U.S., although that would be in large part because it focuses primarily on the Ozarks. Most of the museum is actually Native American exhibits, with a few skeletons of prehistoric animals thrown in. We didn’t get pictures in there as the lighting wasn’t ideal, and I assumed we weren’t supposed to use a flash, though I didn’t see any signs.
It was a great day outing, in spite of standing in line.
