Tag: Mark Twain Lake

The Current River and follow on activities

We left Mark Twain Lake and headed south to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and the Current River. I just love this area of the Ozarks! We camped at Pulltite campground, a NPS site along the Current River. We had reserved our favorite site (#28) months ago, and it was plenty big for the travel trailer and truck. We even had some decent sun for the solar system, a luxury in these deeply forested hills. The weather was all over the place: rain on Tuesday, cool on Wednesday, warm on Thursday, warmer on Friday, and damned hot on Saturday. It just isn’t right to have temperatures of 90 degrees in mid October in south central Missouri!

On Tuesday we did boring housekeeping tasks like laundry. On Wednesday we did the Cedar Grove to Akers run on the Current. Thursday we did Pulltite to Round Spring, and on Friday we did Akers Ferry to Pulltite. Lots of nice paddling with a really fun crew. By Saturday we were really tired and a little sore so we went to The Haunting of the Hills put on by the OSNR at Alley Mill. There were lots of historic activities demonstrated by costumed interpreters, plus the mill itself is really lovely. It was so hot we were really worried about keeping the trailer comfortable enough for the cats, but the vent fans on all day plus leaving the windows open on the north side of the trailer kept is under 85 inside. Love the solar! We would have been challenged to run all the fans without turning on the generator before Kevin installed the system.

Forecasts showed rain on Saturday night, so we packed up a lot of outdoor gear before going to bed. We also decided to start our gradual trek back to Iowa by heading to Mark Twain Lake again for a couple of nights. This time I remembered to take pictures!

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At Mark Twain Lake
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Pulltite Campsite
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Canoeing on the Current? Note the gorgeous color of the water.

RVForum.com Rally in Lanesboro, MN

We met up with friends from the RVForum on Wednesday for a mini-rally at Eagle Cliff Campground just outside of Lanesboro, MN. What fun! The first night was good weather and we had a campfire. We got to meet a number of new folks, and that is always fun. Thursday wasn’t too bad with just some light rain/mist. We did some sightseeing and had lunch at a nice little place in town. Then it started raining in earnest! It rained all Thursday night, all day and night on Friday, and most of the day on Saturday. I really should hire myself out as a rain maker since it always seems to rain when I go to Minnesota!

We did get to spend time with friends Heather and Marshall on Thursday after they arrived, and we spent a lot of time with Greg, Lisa, and their three girls after they arrived on Friday. Also on Friday  we had the traditional rally potluck, and we also had the traditional too much food! Luckily the campground had an enclosed pavilion since it rained so hard. I got to do a little singing too, always a fun thing.

By Saturday around 7:00 pm the rain finally stopped. We had a great group campfire at Eric and Max’s campsite, the rally organizers. Sunday morning saw us saying goodbye and heading south. We had hoped to do some biking and canoeing, but the weather just didn’t cooperate.

We are making our way to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, and we drove quite a bit of the trip today. We are now camped at Indian Creek campground (Corps of Engineers) at Mark Twain Lake in Missouri. What a gorgeous place! Since it is a federal campground our senior pass meant we paid only $9 for a water and electric site. The campsite isn’t too level, but it is very large and heavily wooded. If they are open when we come back through in a week, we are thinking of staying here a few days on the way back to Iowa.

I remembered just as I started to write this post that I took exactly zero pictures at the rally. Sorry!