Boerne, Texas -
Cascade Caverns

Cascade Caverns

It's "Texas' only show cave with a 100 ft. waterfall" -- and a dinosaur. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Cascade Caverns

Their website reads: "Come and enjoy the cool comfort of 68 degree year round temperatures as you wonder through underground pathways, huge cavern rooms and soaring cavern walls." You'll wonder, all right.

Tackiness at it's finest. See the paper mache dinosaur with lightbulb eyes! Walk through a damp cavern with no handrails, illuminated by Christmas lights! We laughed until we cried. Especially when we paid the admission! Well, the tour guide was really very nice and the history of the place is interesting. [Charlotte Perez, 12/14/2003]

[RA: We don't see anything in your description that would stop us from visiting. In fact we did visit, a week after a flood that made the passageways particularly slurpy. The cave is equipped with real lights. And don't forget the "dinosaur bones" and the "waterfall" (marvelously interpreted in their "photo" at cascadecaverns.com). This is classic commercial cave promotion!]

Cascade Caverns

Boerne (pronounced "BER-nee") -- Dinosaurs AND Caverns! Follow the signs from I-10 to Cascade Caverns. You'll think that you're being led astray once you hit the dirt road, but keep going. You'll REALLY think you're being lured into danger when you drive through the gate into a graveyard of old amusement park rides and an overgrown campground (complete with goats and chickens), but keep going. When you get to the fiberglass T. Rex, you'll know you've made it.

Cascade Caverns is the cheesiest of Texas caverns. A plaque hanging over the cash register boasts that the T. Rex was featured in the Patrick Swayze movie, "Father Hood." There's even a snapshot of Swayze with the dino.

The tour is led by local teenagers who don't know much. The climax of the tour is a large underground waterfall which, since Texas is in the midst of a 5-year drought, is not currently flowing. However, the cavern crew has rigged a large pump that makes the waterfall appear to flow -- at least, when they remember to turn it on. (The teenager-in-charge had to run two rooms back to activate the waterfall on one trip.) At the end of the tour, you're allowed to turn around and go back the way you came, unattended. Total cheese factor: 8.5. [Amanda, 06/04/2000]