In my previous post, I discussed the caveman statue that welcomes visitors to Grants Pass, Oregon. Now I think I’ll discuss some caves.

• New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park is spectacular. You can take a simple elevator ride down (some 750 feet) to the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber nearly 4,000 feet long, 625 wide and 350 feet high at its highest point. It also contains the Underground Lunchroom, an actual cave-dwelling cafeteria. Or you can use the Natural Entrance self-guided tour to take you there, a steep but well-paved and exhilarating mile-long walk past myriad natural cave decorations. 
   
• Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, also a national park, is by far the world’s largest cave system, its total length of surveyed passage being more than 390 miles (nearly three times as much as the next largest). There are various tour options – one-hour tours, six-hour tours, tours lit only by paraffin lamps carried by visitors, even some so called “wild” tours that venture into less-developed parts of the cave and take more adventurous visitors through dusty tunnels and muddy crawls. Hint: Don’t pack your claustrophobia. 
   
• Colorado’s Cave of the Winds offers three distinct tours. We opted for the easy, 45-minute Discover Tour, taking us through nearly a mile of caverns, including places with names like Temple of Silence, Bridal Champer and Majestic Hall. But there’s also a Lantern Tour, a dimly-lit, one-and-a-half-hour trek past wonders like Grand Concert Hall and Spider’s Den. Finally, an Eco/Venture Tour invites the adventurous to explore the geology and natural history of the caverns – by flashlight. 
   
• Shoshone Ice Cave in southern central Idaho is a completely different experience. It’s a lava tube only about 1000 feet long with a ceiling height of between eight and 30 feet. The entrance is through a collapsed roof, and it’s not particularly beautiful. But cold air flows in during the winter and freezes all of the water inside, producing a continuous layer of ice and constant temperature of about 30 degrees – quite a natural pleasure on a 90-degree summer day. We walked over a wooden bridge a few inches above the ice. It was cool. 
   
• Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano is what New Mexico likes to refer to as the Land of Fire and Ice. Located on the Continental Divide, west of Albuquerque, you can follow one trail around the side of the volcano, which erupted some 10,000 years ago and now sits 800 feet deep, one of the country’s most accessible examples of an eruption aftermath. Then you can take another trail to the Ice Cave, where it’s always 31 degrees and where reflected rays of sunlight turn the natural layers of ice glistening blue and green. 
   
• Fantastic Caverns, on the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri, was yet another entirely different experience – because this is touted as the only drive-thru cave in the world. We boarded a tram and enjoyed a 50-minute narrated excursion past assorted stalactites (hanging tight from the ceiling), stalagmites (which might connect with them from the ground) and columns (when they do connect). I was most fascinated by the fact that, during the 1920s, the cave was actually home to a speakeasy. 

I have often said that I plan my RV trips meticulously so that I may enjoy the occasional foray into happenstance. Know what to expect, and you can take advantage of the unexpected. It’s a road-tripper’s paradox.

A couple of months ago, on July 4th, I expected our Independence Day to be dominated by a drive through South Dakota’s Badlands National Park. I figured there was a certain patriotic flair in the striped pinnacles and spires and buttes – and a sort of amber-waves-of-grain quality to the mixed grass prairie. You know, O beautiful, spacious skies, flag still waving, that sort of thing.

I couldn’t think of a more inspiring way to spend Independence Day… until it got even better when we arrived at our RV campground just beyond the Badlands in the tiny hamlet of Interior, South Dakota.

Here, alongside a national park and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the Wounded Knee Massacre took place… here, near the Minuteman Missile Site and a former U.S. Air Force bomb and gunnery range, which caused more than a few locals to dive under their tractors to avoid errant bombs… here, where homesteaders used to build sod houses and heat them with buffalo chips… here, we came upon another iconic American subculture – an honest-to-goodness rodeo.

Amy and I were raised in the Chicago suburbs and live on the California coast, so this was a fish-out-of-water experience, so to speak. I enjoy these on occasion. In researching my latest travel memoir, TURN LEFT AT THE TROJAN HORSE, I spent a couple of days in Ohio enjoying dirt track racing and a tractor pull. So I appreciate an all-too-infrequent foray into the unfamiliar.

But this time in particular, it seemed so perfect to come upon this grassroots representation of cowboy culture as the sun set on Independence Day.

The Interior Frontier Days Rodeo & Celebration was, according to the printed program, an “SDRA-MSRA-NRCA-WPRA sanctioned rodeo.” So I assumed acronym-roping was one of the events. Instead, there was everything from barrel racing and bareback riding to steer wrestling.

There was a small-town vibe to the experience. The sponsors had names like Les’s Body Shop and Martin General Store and Joe’s Place Bar & Grill. Some 95 percent of the competitors – men and women – were from South Dakota, from places like Sturgis and White Owl and Faith and Long Valley and Buffalo Gap and Zap. And they had cowboy-perfect names like Tanner Bothwell and Logan Beckett and Dallas Louden and Peyton Ramm.

So we spent an early evening watching the festivities, sidestepping horse manure, stuffing ourselves with Sloppy Joes, feeling only slightly self-conscious that I was wearing a “Cornell lacrosse” hat instead of a ten-gallon version. But it was certainly a memorable 4th of July. In fact, we didn’t even stay for the fireworks, figuring we’ve been there and done that.

One of the joys of an RV trip is that you don’t have to focus on results (the destination). Instead, you can enjoy the process (the journey). Likewise, while we’re a results-oriented society, occasionally we take time to appreciate the production along with the product. One way to do so during an RV journey is by touring iconic and whimsical factories – places where some of our favorite creations are crafted, constructed, fashioned, fermented, tested, tasted, monitored, manufactured and otherwise made.

For instance, at Celestial Seasonings in Boulder, Colorado, a 45-minute tour includes a garden (a stroll through the herbs), a gallery (original tea box designs), a factory (where 8 million tea bags are produced daily) and a feeding (sample from more than 50 varieties). And if the tea doesn’t clear your sinuses, Celestial’s Peppermint Room certainly will.

Or if you feel like ice cream, at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream in Union City, California, you can get two sample scoops and a view of the manufacturing process from second-floor windows above the factory floor. But if you really want to feel like ice cream, visit the Cold Box warehouse, maintained at a frigid 20 degrees below zero.

Essentially, you can be driven by your taste buds. So last Memorial Day, we found ourselves in Fairfield, California. The address: One Jelly Belly Lane. It being a holiday, the factory floor wasn’t in action (for some reason, I expected a crew of Oompa Loompas). But the tour must go on, so a guide named Amanda led us around, and we watched nearly a dozen short videos on different aspects of the confectionary-creation process.

I can’t say I came away a bigger fan of Jelly Belly beans (that’s what they call them). But my kids were in heaven. And apparently heaven tastes like a honey-flavored Jelly Belly. We all learned a lot of useless (unless you want to impress your friends) factoids. For example…

• The first Jelly Belly beans (self-described as the “Rolls Royce of jelly beans”) were produced in 1976, but the company really began nearly a century earlier with the production of Candy Corn. And they also make Gummy Bears, Jordan Almonds, chocolate covered raisins and a whole bunch of other dentistry favorites.
• The jelly bean center is likely a descendant of Turkish Delight. But unlike Jelly Belly beans, traditional jelly beans only have flavors in the shell.
• There were eight original Jelly Belly flavors. There are now 50, including pomegranate, chili mango, kiwi, birthday cake and Dr. Pepper. The most popular: very cherry, butter popcorn and black licorice.
• Among the Harry Potter-inspired flavors available at the free sample bar (well, three free beans): Barf, centipede, canned dog food, baby wipes, pencil shavings and skunk spray.
• Artists have created Jelly Belly portraits of everyone from John Wayne to James Dean, Amelia Earhart to Spiderman, Abe Lincoln to Ronald Reagan (of course), Elvis to Joe Montana. There’s even a new one of… yes, Prince William and Princess Kate. The largest portraits contain more than 14,000 beans.
• Reagan, history’s most famous jelly bean addict, turned to the candy in an effort to kick a smoking habit. Three-and-a-half tons of Jelly Belly beans were sent to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration.
• Jelly Belly beans that are too big, too small, conjoined, misshapen, or discolored don’t make the cut. They are known as Belly Flops. 

Finally, here’s something I learned about myself: I actually found myself in a situation where I watched four robot arms that are used for stacking… and they were synchronized and swaying to the song “Sugar, Sugar.” And I felt a grin tug at a corner of my mouth. Or maybe I was just trying to dislodge a Jelly Belly stuck in my teeth.