Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [55]
Wolves have the most awful reputation for crowding and circling hikers, pulling them down, tearing out their throats and killing them in a fevered bloodbath. Well, it’s all a load of bollocks. There’s no recorded instance of wolves attacking humans in history. They’re the most delightful, tender creatures, and the people working with them at the sanctuary are lovely. They’ve dedicated their lives to looking after these beautiful animals and I’m full of admiration for them.
I also think we could learn a little about social interaction from those African wild dogs. The French have learned it already: they all shake hands in the morning, as if they are being introduced for the first time. I really like that, and was inspired to try it myself. So, at breakfast the next morning, I shook hands with one of the crew. Maybe he was surprised, but I can be quite human when I try.
My journey continued through green farmland, across little bridges over creeks and past red-brick and wood farmsteads, for about thirty-five miles to Stanton, site of one of the best-known and most hyped attractions on Route 66: the Meramec Caverns. So far, I’d travelled nearly four hundred miles along Route 66, and most of that distance had been regularly punctuated by large billboards advertising these limestone caverns, often accompanied by a painting of the outlaw Jesse James. The billboards draw over 150,000 visitors each year to the caves, so they’re clearly doing something right.
The Meramec Caverns are a weird combination of phenomenally beautiful and utterly awful. They’re a wee bit showbiz, with neon signs, souvenir shops and a moonshiner’s cabin outside, all of which I thought was pretty unnecessary. They were first opened up in 1722, when a French miner met an Indian who told him the caverns contained seams of gold. The miner found no gold, but he discovered lots of saltpetre, an essential component of gunpowder. During the Civil War, the Union Army used the caves as a saltpetre plant, but it was discovered and destroyed by Confederate guerrillas, among them Jesse James. Years later, Jesse and his brother and partner in crime, Frank, reportedly used the caves as their hideout. One legend claims that a sheriff staked out the caves, waiting for Jesse and his gang to emerge, but they found another exit and sneaked out that way.
By the early twentieth century, hundreds of tons of saltpetre had been extracted, creating vast underground chambers. In the 1920s the locals started to hold dances down there. One of the largest caves was named ‘the ballroom’ and it still has a tiled floor and a stage. Bands and their audiences would drive their cars right into the caves and dance the night away. Later, the likes of Dolly Parton played concerts there. The sheer size of the place is quite breathtaking. It’s so high that I didn’t even feel like I was underground. There’s no sense of claustrophobia at all, and it has a kind of magnificence.
In the 1930s a guy with big ideas called Lester B. Dill set about tarnishing that magnificence. He bought the caves, explored the full extent of the underground system, and claimed to have found artefacts belonging to the James boys. It’s entirely possible that Dill added more than a wee bit to local legends about the caves being the James Gang’s hideout, and he certainly knew a good marketing opportunity when he stumbled across one. But in my opinion he didn’t need to push the James angle, because the caves would be much more remarkable without all the hype. For instance, in one of the caves there’s something that looks like an art student’s attempt to sculpt a vast Scottish clootie dumpling. In fact, it’s the world’s largest stalagmite, and it’s very impressive and beautiful.
But Dill just couldn’t stop himself when it came to promoting his investment. While sightseers