Day 2 May 10, 2026
Dear Adventure Avenues,
Ever since I was little, I have wanted to go to Missouri. I know that may seem a bit odd, but I am a HUGE Little House on the Prairie fan, and Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the books in her home in Mansfield, Missouri, just an hour outside Springfield, Missouri. This trip is making little me soooo happy!
Today started off with a wonderful breakfast at our hotel. My dad and I got our omelets from the omelet bar before we headed to our first adventure of the day: Crystal Cave.
Crystal Cave
Crystal Cave was located about 15 minutes North from our hotel, making it a convenient place to visit. I researched a lot of different cave tours and this one looked to be what I wanted, an authentic cave experience – And it did not disappoint!
I purchased tickets for the day ahead of time. The tickets were $30 a person and tours were given every hour on the hour. I had read that arriving at the first time slot of the day (today’s was 10am), you had a better chance of a smaller tour group.
While we waited for the tour to start at 10am, my dad and I checked out the penny arcade. My dad even did some old fashion ski ball for a quarter. I tried to do the take a peak barrels for 20 cents, but it wasn’t working.
At 10, our tour started, and we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we were to be the only ones on the tour! We were led down to the cave area by our two (great) tour guides, going through two vintage gates to enter into the cave.
We also saw some salamanders in the moss walls before heading into the cave.
Once inside the cave, the tour guides were surprised to find that the electricity was out in the cave, meaning we would be doing the tour in the dark – with some flashlights. They were super apologetic about it, but we kept telling them how excited we were about it! I had wanted an authentic experience after all!
The tour lasted for about an hour and we were able to see many different ‘rooms’ in the cave. I should note that it was a bit treacherous at times. We did have to bend over/squat through a couple of tight places. For us, that made the experience even better because we felt like we were real life adventurers.
After the tour, we headed back to the hotel to change (we did get a little bit of mud on our clothes and shoes) before heading out to lunch and our next activity of the day.
Lunch at Black Sheep
We ate lunch at the Black Sheep in Downtown Springfield. My dad found it on Yelp as it was one of the higher ranked places. After our big breakfast (and seeing that there were delicious looking shakes on the menu), we decided to split a burger and a fry
My dad got the coffee shake with the coffee liquor in it, and he said it was one of the better coffee shakes he’s ever had. I got the strawberry shake that came with a chunk of strawberry pound cake in it. We split the truffle fry (which came with a bunch of dipping sauces) and the American Girl burger sans cheese. The house pickles were also really good!
After lunch, we made a quick pitstop at Walmart to pick up some a gallon of water to use for the duration of our trip to refill our water bottles. There are Walmarts on about every corner in Springfield, which wasn’t too surprising to me since we were pretty close to Bentonville, Arkansas.
Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Drive & Hike
Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield is a free National Park location (no passes needed). We luckily decided to stop in the visitor’s center before starting our hike because it turned out the “hike” we were planning to take – which would’ve been about 5 miles by the website – was actually a 5 mile loop you should do in your car in order to do a couple mile or so long mini hikes in the actual wilderness along the way. Had we decided to walk it, we would’ve been walking on asphalt, on the same road as the cars (up and down some hills too).
Before driving to our first stop, we did check out the little museum they had inside to learn a little bit about the history of the civil war in that particular place.
Our first stop, Gibson’s Mill was one of the longer “hikes” along the journey, but we quite enjoyed it. We even saw an owl on our way down to the stream and mill site. It was also nice and shady in the trees.
The next stop was the Ray House which wasn’t open to the public, but we did look through the window’s to see what we could see.
The next stops were fields and places of significance during the battle. There were lots of canyons at every stop, along with placards of information that did start to get a little repetitive after some time.
One of the last stops, Bloody Hill, was another longer walk, but this was where a lot of the battle had taken place.
After finishing the route, we headed to our dinner spot which was about 20 minutes away and had been recommended to me by a friend who’d grown up in the area.
Lambert’s Cafe
Lambert’s Cafe is definitely a must stop if you are in Springfield, Missouri. It is the home of the “throwed rolls” which means they literally throw rolls to your table.
We got there around 5:30 and were able to get a table within about 15 minutes. They do not accept reservations, so you have to put your name in at the booth out front and wait for your name to be called.
Once we were called inside, we saw the walls cluttered with fun signs and license plates on our way to sit at our table.
For dinner, we caught some throwed rolls and ate those before our main course arrived. I got fried chicken wings, coleslaw, green beans, and some pass around okra (i.e. a side they walk around with and dole out to people). My dad got ribs, peaches, potato salad, and some pass around potatoes.
We both had a ton of food leftover, so we took them back to our hotel as leftovers after we were done there.
Until tomorrow,
A