Disappearing River

When we were at Mystery Caves, our tour guide told us we were visiting at the perfect time. We were standing by a small river (South Branch of the Root River) and he said it was disappearing before our eyes. You could not tell there, but the river was disapearing into the rocks below and flowing through the lower portions of the Mystery Caves. Our guide told us to stop out by the highway and on one side of the road the river looked normal (top picture) and the opposite side the river disappeared into the rocks (bottom picture). It was really neat! Our guide told us that the river ran underground for about 6 miles and then reemerged as a group of about 25 springs. He said that it was also very neat, but was located on private property. The state park system has first option to buy the springs, but with the financial condition that Minnesota is in, I think it will be quite a while before they own the springs.