Trip to St. Louis - Summer to Remember 2022 - Part One (STR 2022-1…
Sprinty basked in the good life all winter, enjoying the warmer weather and mostly just hanging out in the RV park.
Darrell and Kris showered him with attention from time to time, including new house batteries, seven new tires, a flush/replace of antifreeze in the Alde hydronic heating system, a new sliding door seal, a beefier anti-sway bar, and various other minor maintenance.
Sprinty managed to attend the Tampa RV Supershow, one of the three largest shows in the country in January, and extended the trip home to Georgia with a four day stop at the Grand Oaks Rv Resort in Weirsdale, FL to attend a Liesure Travel Van owners rally.
After over 2 years of planning, Sprinty began his summer 2022 adventure. In February 2020, Sprinty signed up for a 45-day RV caravan trip to join 23 other RVs in adventuring along the Lewis and Clark Trail (https://adventurecaravans.com/tour/lewis-clark-trail/)
Sunday, 1 May
Our original target departure was Sunday, 1 May. However, rain in the forecast caused us to reconsider. We got Sprinty ready on Sunday in anticipation of a Monday departure. Until about 1pm on Sunday, when we decided to just get on the road. The forecast rain did not materialize. Sprinty was ready. Kris was ready. And Darrell was ready.
We started up US411 to Gee Creek Campground , Hiwassee Oconee Scenic River State Park, Delano, TN for the night. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, we had our pick of campsites as most of the campsites were available. That it was dry camping only helped as well.
Monday, 2 May
With our earlier than planned departure yesterday, we had a relatively short drive to Dayton, TN to revisit the Rhea County Historic Courthouse, site of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.
The Rhea County Museum, also called the Scopes Trial Museum, is located in the courthouse basement and contains such memorabilia as the microphone used to broadcast the trial, trial records, photographs, and an audiovisual history of the trial. Every July local people re-enact key moments of the trial in the courtroom. For more information on the Scope Monkey Trial, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial.
In 1979, the second-floor courtroom was restored to the way it looked during the Scopes trial.
Having just read "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose (about the Lewis and Clark Expedition) and visited the Rhea County Museum, we took some solace that contentious, hot button issues that get a lot of media spin today have always been a part of the United States democracy experiment.
With rain forecast tomorrow, we decided to play golf today. We picked Cumberland Cove Golf Course in Monterey, TN. A quick call confirmed we could get on. The course was okay - at $22/person, one can't have high expectations. Certainly not a destination course to play. Todd and Norma invited us to pair up with them - they hadn't played the course before either and were a delight to play golf with.
After golf, we headed northwest towards Mammoth Cave National Park, selecting Barren River Lake State Resort Park in Lucas, KY for our stop for the night.
Tuesday, 3 May
A leisurely start as our cave tour at Mammoth Cave National Park was schedule for 12:15pm. We elected to arrive at Mammoth Cave National Park plenty early to secure a campsite for two nights. We knew there were available sites, but it was hard to determine how sloped they were. Being early in the season, dry camping only, and a weekday, we had plenty of choices. We picked a nice pull-through site.
We last visited Mammouth Cave National Park in 1996 - and neither of us remember any of the details. Based on Mark and Sue's (Journey in Myles YouTube channel)
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| Photo of us with Mark and Sue at the Tampa RV Show, January 2022 |
visit to Mammoth Cave National Park last year, we decided to do the 2-mile/2-hour Historic Tour, a classic that visits many of the historic areas that originally made Mammoth Cave famous. Going through tunnels that humans have used for thousands of years, this tour not only explores huge rooms that gave Mammoth Cave its name, but also descends to much tighter places deep inside the cave.
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| Entrance |
Our guide was Ranger Alex, full of energy and stories. Our tour was large - near the maximum of 110 people. As we exited, a later tour was just entering - with only 20 people. Ranger Alex said that come Memorial Day, all the tours each day would be fully booked at 110 people, and they run about a dozen tours a day.
Pro tip: Plan you visit accordingly. Book your tour in advance online via Recreation.gov
We passed through a section called the Bottom-less Pit. Ranger Alex said it was the only 105-foot deep bottomless pit in the world. 😉 Most of the tour was on improved walkways - and Ranger Alex said they were built about 20 years ago. The concrete pavers that make up the walkway greatly reduce the dust stirred up by people walking through the caverns.
Pro tip: Walk right behind the guide so that you get all of his/her input. Tour traveled at a good clip, and our group of close to 110 people got stretched out at least a few hundred yards. People in the back of the tour missed most of Ranger Alex's talk.
Wednesday, 4 May
With rain forecast for the next couple of days, we rearranged the plan and headed to Glasgow, KY to play golf at Fox Hollow Golf Club. In the Mammoth Cave region, public golf courses seem to be scarce - the majority are private. Like Cumberland Cove Golf Course, it was not a destination golf course. But unlike many struggling golf courses, there was evidence of recent improvements. And the staff made us feel welcome and special. Despite being a short course (4,846 yards for the white tees), it was quite challenging.
While we were following several groups, we played at a two-some pace but for one hole. It was like people in front of us were playing speed golf - we finished 18 holes in just over 2.5 hours.
With more of the afternoon than we expected, we headed for Horse Cave, KY to visit the Hidden River Cave & American Cave Museum (https://hiddenrivercave.com/). We first heard about this from RV friends Mike and Jennifer Wendland of the RV Lifestyle YouTube channel. Their YouTube video from December 2021 (https://youtu.be/dA776yP_0wg; cave part starts about 2:50 into the video) made the cave sound interesting as a future stop.
We just missed the 1pm tour, so we toured the museum operated by the American Cave Conservation Association. One very interesting tidbit was the exhibit on water consumption:
Again, the cave was different - most like the Lost River Cave we visited in Bowling Green last year.
Thursday, 5 May
With rain forecast to start mid-day, we started the day with a morning bike ride on the Mammoth Cave Railroad Bike & Hike Trail. The trail starts at the park lodge, and conveniently passes by the campground.
The trail follows portions of the original Mammoth Cave Railroad line, but has several steep sections which highly recommend dismounting. The trail surface is crushed gravel. In some places, the gravel was large enough they should have run the gravel back through the crusher again.
We definitely appreciated the wide tires on the gravel and the electric assist for the steeper grades.
We packed up and headed west to check out Saltpeter Cave and Falls (a waterfall cave) near Dawson Springs, KY. The 1-mile trail is in the Jones-Keeney Wildlife Management Area. We turned off Highway 62 and proceeded up a narrow, unpaved road for almost a mile (seems to be a recurring theme - chasing waterfall trails down dirt roads). The trail to the top of the cave was fairly easy but for clambering over fallen trees from tornadoes that passed through the area. The parking area at the trailhead was tiny, but we managed to tuck Sprinty in.
We continued west to Grand Rivers, KY to Lake Barkley, a man-made lake on the Cumberland River. Our campsite for the night was at the Eureka campground (Corps of Engineers) located near the east end of the dam. Sprinty was able to get a premium site by the lake. And before the rain started.
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| Eureka Campground |
Friday, 6 May
It rained most of last evening and last night. The forecast was for rain for most of the day. We started the morning off with a treat - breakfast at Dockers on the Bay in Grand River, KY, located across the lake from the Eureka campground.
We then drove south through the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to the Elk and Bison Preserve. We learned from a social media post by RV friends Dan and Lisa of "Always on Liberty" that there was a bison herd in Kentucky. Elk and bison roam free within this 700-acre protective enclosure. Visitors are allowed to travel only in a fully enclosed vehicle on the 3.5 mile paved loop road.
While not a Yellowstone NP experience, it was cool to see bison in Kentucky. Long-time readers of the blog may recall we saw bison while riding bikes near Cumberland Gap in August 2020.
The nearby Golden Pond Visitor Center, Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, had a nice collection of exhibits on the history of the area, including the 20th century projects to dam the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers which transformed the Land Between the Rivers into the Land Between the Lakes.
With the rain, alternating between a misty drizzle to outright downpour, we made arrangements to stay at a Harvest Host golf course in Makanda, Illinois. Reviewing the map, we found an interesting looking hike at Dutchman Lake near Ozark, IL.
As we headed out of Paducah, KY, on US45 (so as to avoid the interstate) just as we were about to cross the Ohio River, we noticed the height restriction sign of 9'-6". As Sprinty stands 9'-10", Darrell quickly made a detour and Sprinty avoided a surprise haircut.
After crossing the Ohio River, we got back on US25 which passed through Metropolis, IL, home of Superman.
We left visiting the Superman museum for a future trip. Like the hike yesterday, the Dutchman Lake Upper Falls trailhead was about a mile down a dirt road. Fortunately we downloaded the AllTrails map before we lost cell signal. An interesting walk in the woods - but not a hike we would recommend. First, the trail was not marked and we wouldn't have known which paths to take without the AllTrails map. Second, the trail had the highest concentration of poison ivy of any trail we had ever done. While we are skilled at avoiding it, it became impossible. And lastly, the AllTrails map did not take us to the places where the photos on Google maps were taken. On a positive note, we did get a two-mile hike in, crossing three streams, and did see some waterfalls.
After checking in at the golf course, Keller's Crossing at Stone Creek, we spent a quiet, rainy afternoon and evening hunkered down in Sprinty. We finished watching the movie, Nomadland, based on the book of the same name.
Saturday, 7 May
We woke up to a cool morning. Jason, one of the golf course owners, said we could play earlier or later than our tee time - they were not going to be busy. And gave us the member guest price. Just before 9am, we ventured out. The course was sopping wet and unmowed due to several days of rain. We enjoyed the course and would definitely play again when conditions are better. A destination golf course for sure.
After golf, we continued west, making a quick stop at the laundromat in Anna, IL, enroute. We passed through Cape Girardeau, and drove backroads to Sam A Baker State Park in Patterson, MO. As we drove through the Missouri Ozarks (southeast Missouri), it reminded us a lot of West Virginia - winding roads through hollows following along creeks and streams, the vegetation, and the depressed economic situation.
Being a weekend, we made a reservation last night at Sam A Baker State Park for one of the few available campsites for a Saturday night. Saturday night of Mother's Day weekend. Our reserved site was in Campground 1. When we arrived, we found the gate to Campground 1 padlocked. As the park is on a river, we guessed it was because the recent rains had the river rising enough that they had to close the campground. We proceeded to the Visitor Center collocated with Campground 2. They were able to accommodate us in Campground 2 due to a cancellation.
Sunday, 8 May
With virtually no cell signal last night (we could text, make phone calls, but downloading an email took 20 minutes), we made our customary Sunday latte, then drove up the road to the state park diner in the hopes there was cell signal there. There was so we ordered breakfast and caught up on emails, figured out our plan for the day, etc.
Our first activity was to hike the Mina Sauk Falls trail located at Taum Sauk Mountain State Park near Middle Brook, MO. AllTrails listed it as a 2.9-mile moderate hike taking 1 hour 15 minutes.
The first part of the loop was downhill. With the recent rains, the trails were like shallow creeks.
On a positive side, the recent rains had the falls flowing. The falls were a nice payoff for our effort. And the final mile of road to the trailhead was unpaved.
We decided to continue the loop trail which follows the Ozark Trail for part of the loop and followed the stream feeding the falls, providing additional falling water opportunities.
We were glad we made it a loop. The hike back up to the trailhead was drier than the trail down, and less rocky.
After lunch, we headed for Elephant Rocks State Park. The trail there was a paved, handicap accessible loop around the boulders. It reminded us a bit of Panama Rocks in New York and City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico. The loop around the rocks was like a shorter version of the loop trail at Devil's Tower in Wyoming.
"Welcome to Elephant Rocks State Park, and one of Missouri's most unusual geologic formations. This landform, called a"tor", features a stack or pile of spheroidally or round weathered granite boulders, sitting atop a bedrock mass of the same rock. The giant, red granite "elephants" were formed in place - right where they stand - sculpted by the relentless forces of weathering and erosion over millions of years of geologic time. The elephant boulders were first shaped beneath the earth's surface then exposed by erosion. Although similar, smaller outcroppings occur in other parts of the St. Francois Mountains region, Elephant Rocks is certainly Missouri's finest tor, and one of the best examples of this interesting landform anywhere in the mid-continent area."
We continued on to Johnson's Shut-ins State Park. Our original plan was to hike the Shut-ins Trail, a 2.4-mile, moderate hike. But Kris's knee was done for the day. We settled for the short walk from the parking area to an overlook of one of the shut-ins. Access to the shut-ins (water access) was closed due to high river flow from the rains. Which also made the park very empty for a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
We learned that a "Shut-in" is a term for a narrow construction, or gorge, in a stream. As we watched the water flowing over the rocks, it reminded us a bit of a smaller version of Great Falls on the Potomac River in Maryland/Virginia.
We settled into a nice shaded site in Loop 3 (electric) at Johnson's Shut-ins State Park. We are one of three campers in the loop tonight.
Monday, 9 May
We started the day with a bike ride at Johnson's Shut-ins State Park, starting by cruising the five campground loops, then riding from the campground to the day use area. As we crossed under the highway, we saw the bike path was underwater. Undeterred, Darrell just throttled on through. One of the advantages of an electric bike.
Of course, had we been more attentive, we would have seen that we could have bypassed the water by walking/riding the bikes on the adjacent gravel. But what would be the fun in that?
After our bike ride, we broke camp and headed to St. Louis to visit the St. Louis Zoo (https://www.stlzoo.org). The zoo requires you to get your free admission ticket online before you arrive, which we did. We knew from checking the area that there was no parking for vehicles >24 feet in the paid zoo parking lot. We might could have if we did not have the bike as Sprinty is 24'-1" long. We found street parking (free) nearby, and Sprinty executed a fine parallel parking maneuver on the first try.
The zoo was highly recommended - however, visiting on a reasonable hot (mid-80s) afternoon (hot for this early in the season) meant the animals were pretty dormant. All three of the hippopotamuses were in the pool trying to stay cool. The elephants were splashing water all over themselves to stay cool. And many could not be seen at all. We concluded it was not the ideal time to visit.
Our campsite for the tonight and tomorrow night is at Babler State Park Campground in Wildwood, MO, about 20 miles west of the zoo.
Tuesday, 10 May
Today's activity was to play golf, preferably early in the day before the day got mid-summer hot with temperatures in the 90s. We picked The Quarry at Crystal Springs golf course in Maryland Heights, MO mostly because we had fond memories of playing in a quarry golf course near Tucson three years ago. We arrived early, and got to go off early. The starter said it was a tough course. We both had a mix of good shots and struggled on others. And we finished before lunch.
Tonight is our last night of independent traveling for 7+ weeks. Tomorrow, we check-in at the St. Louis West/Historic Route 66 KOA Holiday in Eureka, MO, for the start of our 45-day Lewis & Clark Trail – Reliving The Expedition RV caravan (https://adventurecaravans.com/tour/lewis-clark-trail/).
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