Beautiful Missouri, off to Michigan

After our canoe trip we headed to a campsite that would be home base for a few day trips.  We explored Elephant rocks, climbing around a bunch of huge boulders.  It was a little scary for me, as we didn't use any protection, but the rock had good grip and we didn't get hurt.

We spent a different day at Johnson shut-ins (also known as a gorge).  It’s a beautiful area with shut-ins due to the Rhyolite rocks not breaking down as easily as the sedimentary rock.  It was a really fun place to play in the water and climb around the rocks.  We took advantage of the 80 degree weather, went swimming in a big swimming hole, and did a short hike about 2.5 miles.

We went on several hikes and did a 3 day backpacking trip.  The backpacking trip was the Taum Sauk section of the Ozark trail.  It was a total of 35 miles.  It was not a loop, but due to the friendliness we encountered in Missouri we figured a hitch wouldn't be too hard.  We waited about 30 min and a very nice guy with his dog bobo picked us up.  He said if he hadn't we would have waited a very  long time as the area we were in was very conservative, but he being a fellow traveler and hitchhiker felt a duty to pick us up.  He did more than that, we actually went out of his way to take us all the way back to our car.  We were extremely grateful and will continue to pick up hitchhikers and keep the good karma flowing.  I don't have much from the hikes and backpacking, Matthew took a bunch so I'm in a lot of them.

 on top of Taum Sauk Mt

 Mina Sauk falls 

 Along Belle Mountain day hike

 One of the stops on our backpacking trip

 amazing scour, what this picture doesn't allow you to appreciate is how BIG that reservoir is. 

Fine dining on the trail

Noticed this after the backpacking trip, yay time for new shoes!

We spent several days back at Adams farm in Huzzah, we helped pick seeds (blazing star, drop seed, aster, clover are the ones I remember right now), ate amazing food, walked along the river and enjoyed each others company.

 We cooked up some amazing meals on this grate

 Prairie dog concentrating, trying to get crawfish, only getting rocks lol

 Neat walnut roots

 Crawfish a plenty in this river

My mountain man in a tree :-)

That's about all I have to share for now.  We have had some of the best times out here, thanks to our wonderful tour guide, Adam.  Missouri has been added to the list of places we may settle down, was not expecting it but what a gem!  We leave tomorrow morning for a 10 hour drive to Michigan.  We'll spend a few weeks there then over to Wisconsin to visit one of Matthews best friends and then.. Don't know, maybe stick around, maybe head SW to New Mexico.  

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