Russell Cave National Monument

A solid national monument, but I left expecting something more.
Buried in what feels like Middle-​of-​Nowhere, Alabama, Russell Cave is kind of a long drive from everywhere. I love National Parks Service sites, so I made the stop here on my drive down to Memphis. It is a small site, but fairly interesting, a cave that many indigenous peoples lived in, high potential for a cool site. However, the site needs some upkeep. The visitor center is very small, but the displays are fairly recent, I thought reasonably informative. The cave itself though was a major let down. It’s a fairly small cave, you can’t do any exploring, and there are several strange recreations of indigenous life that I thought were very poorly done (and kind of in poor taste). I do imagine the site would be very beautiful in the fall, and I believe the birding there is quite excellent (but I’m not a birder, so don’t take my word for it).