Spook Cave: Underground Boat Tour
McGregor, Iowa
At one time, advertising a commercial cave with a hollow-eyed sheet ghost on billboards was promotional genius. And it still works. We allow ourselves to be sucked in, and discover that Spook Cave is one that must be toured entirely by boat. We appreciate this extreme lack of physical effort, and it's a good way to escape the heat.
Spook Cave opened to the public on Labor Day 1955. The tour still uses its original aluminum boats and some of its original gags, such as a rubber alligator with glowing eyes and the "bones" of Old Joe Smiley, who, we were told, entered Spook Cave to change light bulbs and never returned. Spook Cave is a single passage, and the tour has a wild feel to it even though our guide admits that it has been improved with occasional applications of dynamite. When she cautions us about low ceilings, she means it. At several points our boatload has to bend in half, placing their heads between their knees, and even with that we are barely able to slip beneath the overhanging rock.
When you visit, hope that the water level doesn't rise while you're inside, and pay attention -- you don't want to remember Spook Cave as the place where you lost a piece of your scalp.