Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We just spent three nights at the Highway K Campground.

It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere, where Missouri Highway K crosses the Black River.

This is another Army Corps of Engineers campground, so the sites are paved and level.

There weren’t any trails, so Matey and I walked around the campgrounds. There were two loops open, but one had no electric and only one tent on the last morning we were there. This is the Black River near that loop. Three loops were closed and made for nice walking, but you had to drive over the bridge and a bit down Highway K to get there and there was no good place to park, as the entrance gate was closed. We did walk there once.

The nearest disc golf course was 25 miles away. It was decent, though I didn’t play well there.

This stop was very pretty and very quiet, but with no trails and worse, almost no cell service or internet, I was ready to move on after the three nights.

We’ve been in a lot of small towns in our travels, and Waynesville, MO, where we are now, is like many of them.

Its old downtown is trying to survive.

Much is made of its location along the old Route 66, which has become nostalgically popular.

Most of the businesses use the old route in their advertising.

The five arch, concrete bridge still carries traffic through downtown,

as it has since it was built in 1923.

This was a route through the Ozarks long before Route 66. This building was built in the early 1800’s and served as a stage coach stop for many years.

Before the stage coach stop, the area served as a stop for groups of eastern Indians on their long trek to Oklahoma after they were forced off their homelands in the southeast.

The Indian caravan stopped here because of the natural spring, which still gushes from under this wall…

at the base of this hillside.

It is not too impressive from the surface, but is a very popular cave dive in this area of the country.

The spring runs into Roubidoux Creek which is stocked with brown and rainbow trout. The spring and creek are another draw for this small town.

But what keeps this town alive is Camp Leonard Wood. The soldiers fill the rental houses in town as well as many new townhouses and apartments on the outskirts, and their children fill the large school.

To encourage tourists to stay a while, the city operates this campground.

It’s basic, but it does have full hook-ups. The setting is pretty,

and there are nice walks…

on both sides of the creek.

And at $20 a night or $100 a week it was enough to entice us to stay 9 days. Seemed like a good place for another little break.

We are now at Harry S. Truman State Park near Warsaw, Missouri. In the last forty days we have spent 38 at public campgrounds. These public lands are wonderful. This is the view of Truman Lake from the Bluff Ridge Trail in the park.

Matey and I enjoyed these views yesterday morning,

as we walked along the wooded trail. It was a bit hard to find in the fallen leaves, but we found it.

In the evening we walked the Western Wallflower Trail, and although the season is wrong for the flowers, we did see the lowering sun reflected on lake.

Not only was it another beautiful trail,

I also feel safe walking these trails with just Matey for company.

This morning we walked the 1000th Mile Trail and caught the early sun on the hillside.

The maples here made pops of color amid the mostly green oaks. This trail went through an area that’s being reclaimed from invasive red cedar (actually a juniper).

There were plenty of beautiful trees.

And a glimpse of another part of the lake.

Even when we stay at a commercial campground we spend most of our days on public land.

Both days we were here we played disc golf at a Corps of Engineers recreation area nearby.

It was a fun course,

in a pretty setting,

and we had it all to ourselves.

We wouldn’t be able to live like this and enjoy so much of the beauty of this nation (and Canada) if it weren’t for the public lands. So thank you taxpayers everywhere.

We are at Crowder State Park in northern Missouri.

We have a beautiful campsite originally set up for an intern, so it has full hook-ups and no neighbors.

This is our front lawn. There are no high mountains here, no grand rivers; many might find this area dully tame.

But I love these woods. There are oaks and ash and hickories and now maples.

The understory has dogwood and redbuds.

I love the morning sun filtered through broadleaves,

especially when the leaves are starting to turn.

There are rocky ridges here, but also plenty of dirt. Turns out I really like dirt with my rocks.

For the next three weekends in October this state park holds Haunted Hollow, which includes “haunted hayrack rides and spooky campsite decorating”. In driving around the park we’ve found the route for the hayrack ride, and it looks like it will be a good one.

At the northern edge of the park is the site of the old town of St. Deroin. There is not much left, a brick schoolhouse and a small building that was a broom making shop. It is the park road to this site that will be the route of the ride.

The one-way road winds down to the river through a ravine in these steep hills. Even at noon it was shaded and lonely looking.

Special effects have been added that make the picnic groves a bit forbidding.

From the townsite we took a walk up a steep and gnarly path…

to the old “half-breed” cemetery. Although not part of the route, it fit the mood.

The park road back out was even more confined, running up a narrow old cut.

No way to escape the ghouls…

waiting along the way.

Even the trees managed to look menacing. In an open wagon at dusk this route is bound to create some shivers.

I looked at the park map and found although there are miles of trails, there aren’t many loop trails, and there aren’t any trails that start at the campground. So this morning I asked Bud if he would take Matey and me to the far end of Trail 4, so we could walk back from there. He obliged.

It was a well maintained trail through the woods.

Matey and I both enjoyed it.

The trail did have some steep parts, both uphill and downhill.

In many places the trail was covered with acorns. On a very steep downhill, despite my best effort, my foot rolled out on the acorns. I realize this was the perfect opportunity to yell “Oh nuts!”, but I did not. I sank silently to the ground thinking, “That knee doesn’t bend that far.” I was wrong. I sat on the ground waiting for the pain to pass and called to Matey to wait. Unlike Lassie he did not run to my aid; he stood there waiting for the walk to resume. After a moment I got carefully back to my feet and finding myself still operable we kept on.

After just under a mile we were back out on the park roads, but they were quite pretty, too.

Even cutting back through the campground was lovely. We got back to the camper in just under two miles. Despite the unintended deep knee bend it was a nice morning walk.

We’re a little bit further south along the Missouri at Indian Cave State Park, our only stop in Nebraska. We’re in rolling hills and hardwood forests, not what you might expect in Nebraska, but what I hoped for when I decided we should follow the Missouri River back on our return to Arkansas. I have not been disappointed.

And lately we have managed to stay on the edge of summer and fall, with daytime temperatures in the 70’s and overnight lows in the lower 50’s, and just a tinge of color to the leaves.

This morning I started out with a sweatshirt for a game of disc golf, but by the time we finished and drove down to the boat ramp I had shed the long sleeves. This boat ramp is parallel to the river and you enter with the current, which is strong.

We are miles below the last dam and this bold river truly rolls along through here.

This afternoon it is the perfect temperature to sit out in the shade at the campsite.

And at least now, on a Monday afternoon, it is blissfully quiet.

First, I want to mention our friends in Southwest Florida. It’s difficult to write of our peaceful good times knowing there are thousands with a category four hurricane bearing down on them. I only hope Ian does a minimum of harm. Stay safe, everyone. The only people who die in hurricanes are those who don’t get out. So if there’s an evacuation order for you, please go!

We are just south of Council Bluffs, Iowa, along the Missouri again, in Lake Manawa State Park. We are now below the dams on the river, but there still seems to be no commercial navigation here. We saw what might have been a barge loading apparatus, but it looked old and disused. It is a lovely river, still.

Lake Manawa lies just east of the river and was formed by a river flood in 1881. It’s a big enough lake to allow motor boating and water skiing and wake boarding. We even saw a sailboat with a small cabin on it yesterday.

The park around it is lovely and seems to be a popular place with people from Council Bluffs and Omaha, which is right across the river.

The campground is new, and although it is just a large, grassy field, the campsites are well spaced and the roads and sites are all cement and level.

And it has full hook-ups, so we are staying here a week.

There are miles of bike and walking paths.

Despite the background noise of an urban area, which we haven’t heard since Missoula, there is wildlife. We’ve seen turkeys and deer and a lot of fat, dark brown squirrels. Not a bad place to hang out for a week.

We’ve been staying in campgrounds without water or sewer, so I booked us for three or four days; we don’t have to worry about our waste-water tanks filling up in that time.

This was a three night stay at Big Sioux Recreation Area, outside Sioux Falls, SD.

Thursday, when we got there, we decided to try the disc golf course. It was an eighteen “hole” course through the woods and some open glades. It would have been nice, but the rough was so full of nettles it was unplayable. We only made it to hole five before we gave up.

On Friday it was cold and rainy, but we had errands to run. Matey finally got groomed and the clothes got washed.

Friday night the place filled up. I asked the campground hosts if there was something going on and they said there was nothing special, it was like this every weekend.

There were still plenty of uncrowded trails.

Like this lovely bike path.

The day use areas were mostly empty.

You would never know walking down this park road that there was a crowded campground in the trees to the right and a subdivision just past the trees on the left.

On Saturday we drove a couple of hours east to meet friends from Rochester, MN for a picnic. We had a great time in a beautiful park in Fairmont, MN. I was having such a nice time that I forgot to take any pictures!

Then today we left for our next campground. Matey and I hadn’t even finished exploring the trails. I would have really regretted leaving if the disc golf had been playable, so I’m kind of glad it was full of nettles.

We traveled due east from our last campground to get to another South Dakota State Park, Roy Lake State Park. We are gradually heading back to Arkansas, but I didn’t want to get too far south too soon. That turned out to be a good decision because we’re having temperatures from the fifties to the seventies and not much further south it’s supposed to be in the high nineties.

We are camped in the East Unit of the park; when we got here on Sunday there was one other trailer and someone staying in one of the two cabins they have here.

Today we are alone with 32 empty campsites!

There are big, beautiful hardwoods here. I had to get out my tree book to figure out our neighbors. They are mostly bur oaks with quite a few green ash and some American basswoods. There are big squirrels in abundance much to Matey’s delight.

And Matey and I have met two different small flocks of turkeys.

There is a disc golf course on the other side of the park.

And pretty Roy Lake forms a background to it all.

Oh this is nice and we are so lucky to be here, doing this.