Wednesday (Aug 3)
When I followed the one-way loop out of the campground to leave, there are indeed nicer sites right on the little river at the back of the loop. I hadn’t really processed it because of the menacing (to me) dude with the big dog whose vehicle was a giant blue semi-trailer cab. This place is so far back in the hills and so deserted that I kinda felt skeevy, so I left. It probably actually was not skeevy, but I pay attention to my intuitions, so I missed that particular nice spot.
Very restorative day for me. I decided a couple of days ago to punt my plan to follow the Lewis and Clark route home and to visit Peggy in Aspen instead. I’ve needed to take some time to get the details of that nailed down. To get some kind of place to stay in Aspen reserved and generally get some idea of how I will spend the next 18 days until then. Today is going to be that day.
I drive back up the hill out of the lonely holler where I spent the night and head for the relatively big city of Rolla MO. First stop is an odd little coffee house near what I later learned is the Missouri University of Science and Technology. The coffee house shared a space with a pharmacy catering to old folks and was manned by a cadre of very young college boys all wearing bandanas tied across their foreheads like they were Benihana chefs or the Karate Kid. This is what they had settled on to be their uniform. I gave them a little bit of a hard time about it, but they weren’t getting the joke, so I left them alone. Good coffee and good cookies, but weird :)
Thence to spend an even longer time internetting at the downtown Rolla Library. This is where I made my reservation for two nights at Difficult Campground (great name!), a National Forest (half price!) campground four miles outside of Aspen, for Sunday and Monday night three weeks from now. Also, I identified the Freightliner Dealer in Oklahoma City as the place I would get my 70,000 mile Sprinter service during first part of next week. So that is now my official my near term plan – I will take the rest of the week to get from here to OKC!
With that in mind I decide to camp at yet another Ozark Plateau freshwater spring tonight (Bennett), then spend tomorrow afternoon doing yet more reminiscing in the town of Springfield MO, where my dad lived, and where I lived ages 2-6. As I say, a thoroughly useful and enjoyable afternoon for me!
Food choices are pretty awful out here, so I end up in the buffet line at the Sirloin Stockade on the outskirts of town. Sort of a poor man’s Sizzler. For all my hatin’ on the place, I had what was probably one of my healthier and tastier meals since I left Louisville.
Like any good chain restaurant, the Sirloin Stockade is right on a freeway interchange. The interchange is quite complex, very modern, with rotaries rather than stop signs – which meant I had to make maybe six split-second decisions in two minutes to end up on the correct ramp to merge onto I-44 into the afternoon sun to head towards tonight’s spring. Exit at Lebanon MO for a fifteen mile drive to:
WHUFU page for: Bennett Spring Campground
Fourth spring in a row! This one has a fishery.
It's very spread out. Long drive up the hill to pick a site, drive back and check in, then later drive back to fish or walk or just see the sites.
Swimming not allowed in the park, but just outside and across the bridge is river access where you can swim.
Despite the reliance on driving, a very nice place. People were catching lots of fish!
tonight:
Fourth spring in a row! This one has a fishery.
It's very spread out. Long drive up the hill to pick a site, drive back and check in, then later drive back to fish or walk or just see the sites.
Swimming not allowed in the park, but just outside and across the bridge is river access where you can swim.
Despite the reliance on driving, a very nice place. People were catching lots of fish!
This is my fourth Missouri spring, but my first Missouri State Park, so tonight it is the night when I learn how Missouri does it. It’s a check-in system. They are perfectly happy for you to drive around and find the site you like, but then you must drive back to the office to lock in that exact site. Here the office is in the valley by the river, but the campground loops are high up the side of a small mountain. They kindly told me where the few open tent sites were. I ended up in Loop 5 maybe 600′ up and two miles away from the office.
- So, drive up the hill, find my site and put my chair on it,
- drive back down the hill to the office to run my credit card,
- drive back up the hill to post my receipt, putter around for a while then
- drive back down the hill to enjoy the place. Leave the park and cross the bridge to swim in the swift, cold Niangua River. Turns out the river is really cold and really swift, so I just held on to a root to not get swept away and (literally) chilled for a while,
- drive back into the park and take the leisurely park road past all the fishermen to the source of Bennett Spring and walk for a while – at the You are here in the map above :), then
- drive a bit more to the hatchery,
- then drive back up the hill for the final time for night.
It was good to stay as long as possible down at the spring and hatchery, because my campsite is pretty boring. My own little 40′ strip of grass and a couple of trees between two big motor homes. No privacy to speak of. The showers are nice and pretty close.
Thursday
I hung out in the hammock for awhile, doggone sun keeps moving, so shifting shadows ended that. I blogged in the shade at my picnic table for a while untilI got chomped pretty good by a biting fly. That’s it! I’m over this place. Hanging out isn’t fun any more, so … on to another afternoon of nostalgia in Springfield MO!
It’s such a generic city that it really could be the Simpson’s Springfield. But it is also where my daddy’s family is from and where I grew up ages 1-6, and where I came to visit my Dad till he died when I was 13. So I do have a bit of history here … another quickie episode in the Nostalgia Tour.
Coffee first however. Stop #1 is at the European Cafe, in some kind of relatively new Arts area in the downtown. There is a brand new plaza eked out of what must have been the decaying old downtown. While there I study the maps and figure out that this is quite close to where I spent most of my time, in the two block area where my dad lived and worked. There was the Professional Building at Cherry and Kimbrough where his doctor’s office was and where I have a lot of memories. And there was his walk-up apartment around the corner on Elm, and that’s about it for my memories. Both buildings and in fact both whole blocks have been utterly erased by the expansion of the campus of Southwest Missouri State, which didn’t even exist back in the 50’s and 60’s. Bummer. I really can’t go home again.
The other remembered name is Phelps Grove Park, where we lived when I was pre-school and my mom’s best Springfield friend lived. It’s still there! On my drive-through I saw the name Catalpa St, and that set off a memory thread. It’s where my mom’s friend Marguerite lived in her nice little house with the big front porch on shady Catalpa. Dunno which house it was, but a few of them sure looked familiar.
By now it’s Springfield rush hour, so leisurely cruising isn’t the thing any more. I don’t find any good restaurant the direction I’m going, so I settle for a Chipotle. It really hit the spot, I’m happy to say. Then back onto I-44 for more driving through the lush, beautiful Ozark Plateau.
A nice lady on my walk last night mentioned that the creek at Roaring River was even prettier, so I looked it up and it’s on my way and is again built around yet another one of these wonderful Ozark springs! Without her recommendation I would have missed it, since it doesn’t have “Spring” in it’s name, so I’m really glad she told me that!
So, down the the headwaters of Table Rock Lake in the southwest corner of the state, to:
WHUFU page for: Roaring River Campground
Fifth spring in a row! Also a fishery. This may be the fishiest yet!
Quite large, there is a lodge with a nice restaurant up the hill. There is wifi strong enough I could use it from my van ... but it only worked for the last 6 hours of my two days there.
There was live bluegrass music in the Lodge on Friday night!
tonight:
Fifth spring in a row! Also a fishery. This may be the fishiest yet!
Quite large, there is a lodge with a nice restaurant up the hill. There is wifi strong enough I could use it from my van ... but it only worked for the last 6 hours of my two days there.
There was live bluegrass music in the Lodge on Friday night!
These state parks seem awfully busy so I called ahead to make sure there would be available sites. The nice lady told me that it was cool to drive around and find a spot before checking in, which saves me one of the round trips I did last night. Loop 3 is the spot for tent sites. It became clear I could have shade or I could have privacy, but could not have both. It’s so fucking hot that the choice is no contest. Site 142 is under a huge sycamore tree and is the place for me. No privacy, neighbors close by in every direction, but so much delicious shade!
I drive around til I find the office and pay for tonight. Then I do a quick tour of the park. Unlike last night, it’s possible to walk from my campsite to the interesting places. So I go back and park in my yummy shade and do just that!
It’s a cool place, a fisherman’s paradise. They’re everywhere, up and down the river, up to the magic line near the hatchery where fishing is no longer allowed and the fish are HUGE.
Back at the Loop 3 bathroom there is a bulletin board which tells me that there is a free Bluegrass show tomorrow night! I’ve got more than two weeks to kill before I have to be in Aspen, so I start thinking about staying another night here. By morning I am resolved to do it!
Roaring River runs right behind my campsite. It was clogged with fishermen all day, but when after dark it’s deserted. I took a very refreshing dip then grabbed a pair of shorts and walked over to the shower in my wet trunks and got myself cleaned up and refreshed. Nice!
Friday
Man I love my shade! A little before 11 am I bestirred myself to drive up the hill to the Lodge. The alleged wifi was not working, but I was in time for breakfast! I dined in picture-windowed comfort looking down at crossroads in the middle of the park. Then I hustled over to the park office to reserve my spot for another night. It was available, and I am very happy with to be staying here another night.
The lady tells me the closest civilization is Cassville, 12-ish miles away. I make a run there to get my staples of life: beer, wine, and milk, a sandwich and peanut butter. The lady also recommended a grocery called Pricecutters. I don’t like the name, it sounds like a Dollar Store for food, but in fact it was probably the best supermarket I visited in the whole midwest.
Since the lodge failed me on wifi, I walk across the Pricecutters parking lot to borrow enough McD’s wifi to download my podcasts. In particular the one required item is yesterday’s Maddow Show, because they only keep one available. I can download Thursday’s today, but tomorrow it will be blown away by Friday’s, so I “must” have it!
Little jaunts like this always seem to go so much quicker on the return trip. Twelve miles seemed like a pretty long way going TO Cassville, but driving home it was nothing.
Back to my site. The place really is filling up for the weekend. Sites on both sides are occupied by 2:30. Swim, then spend an hour or so organizing myself. Now that I know I will be getting a van service next week I dig out my repair papers from the middle (or is that muddle) of my storage and organize them to be ready for my visit to OKC Freightliner. Take out the map suitcase, bury my used maps and bring out my impending maps.
My, what an excellent non-travel day I’ve had! Since I’m here all afternoon I can take a more ambitious hike than I usually do – same name as my campground and lake week ago, the Devil’s Kitchen Trail. I figure that name just naturally occurs to anyone who spends a few days here in the summer. It’s a two mile hike up to the top of the hill and back down. It really kicked my ass in this heat. I peeled off my sweat-soaked socks and shoes and clothes and drove straight to the showers. Stopped at the campsite for a few, then drove up the hill to the Lodge for bluegrass music!
The music was super fun, but I left a little early so I could have a little light to back into my campsite – not early enough as it turns out. There is a campsite directly across from my parking spot and all seven members of that family are asembled around their fire in full Friday night cookout mode. So when I back into my spot I get the annoying asshole who shines his headlights on your party. I apologize and end up getting invited over for a hamburger! Nice folks!