Well, Marcus continues to be the peppiest morning person I
know. And he likes to pop out of bed like a scared armadillo as soon as the sun
comes out, so that’s even better. I’m sure if I were a morning person this
behavior wouldn’t seem so odd to me, but I am not a morning person. My peak
time is between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. That’s when I really shine.
After a cinnamon roll breakfast, which I chose not to eat
and subsequently got yelled at for (Jason is also not a morning person), we set
out for an unknown destination. From experience, we should know that having no
plan, is a bad plan, but away we went, everyone except Marcus with a scowl on
their face. Fun.
Since there is no reliable internet anywhere near the Lake
of the Ozarks, we had to rely on the park maps and signage. Once again we found
the signage to be sketchy at best. After turning around a couple of times, we
found ourselves on “The Swinging Bridges Road,” which was at best a low
maintenance gravel road. But Jason had read about these rickety suspension
bridges somewhere and he was jazzed that we found them. Driving here seems to
take forever—even just a few miles—because of all the turns, dips, and
absolutely no line of sight due to the heavy tree coverage. When we arrived at
the first swinging bridge, everybody was freaking out, like we were about to go
on some crazy rollercoaster that had missing bolts. Instead, we just drove our
car across a rusted-up suspension bridge while all the males in the car went,
“Aaa, ahh, oh my gosh!” After narrowly surviving the first bridge, we drove on
to the second bridge. Now this bridge was a little more nausea inducing. First,
it was at least three times as long. I could also visibly see several snapped
suspension wires. However, the most concerning thing was that its weight limit
was three tons. The family truckster is slightly heavier than three tons, and
when you add our body weight, it doesn’t get any better. Nevertheless, Jason
and I had every intention of going across the bridge, but not before Lucas had
to watch Jason check the vehicle weight on the inside of the door to be
satisfied we underweight. Thank goodness he didn’t know what any of the numbers
meant. Jason told Luke we were 4100 pounds and we lived to tell about it.
With one of Jason’s must-see items off the list, we
continued down the road, struggling to find the right roads, to the Ozark
Caverns. Now these Caverns do not disappoint. They contain one of 8 known
showerhead/bathtub calcite formations in the world and the only one in the
United States that is open to the public. The next closest public cave that
features such a formation is Bora Bora. It was absolutely magnificent!!
While the Caverns used to be filled with bats, the cave
became infected with white nose disease a few years ago and killed all the
bats. Consequently, we cannot enter any other cave with any of the items that
we had on during our tour. So, when we go to Mammoth Cave in a few days,
everyone must wear different shoes, take off jewelry, and disinfect their
glasses before entering.
After having such a great time with the swinging bridges and
the Caverns, we decided to press on and wrap up our site seeing at Ha Ha Tonka
State Park, which according to our cave tour guide was superior to Lake of the
Ozarks State Park in every possible way, “even their worst trail is better than
our best trail.” If that’s not a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Even though we stopped at McDonalds and ate a nutrition-filled
meal, everyone was still in rare form. Samus was in ultra-teenager mode. Marcus
was in typical eight-year-old begging and whining mode (can I have… please… why
not… can I have this then… turning into an endless cycle) and Lucas was being
his aloof and apathetic self. Thankfully Jason and I were totally cool (well at
least one of us was… it wasn’t me). We walked up to some burned down mansion
that had taken on the name of The Castle. Eh. Then we, no thanks to the signs,
headed down to a natural bridge, which I must say was quite impressive. This is
where things should have ended. Instead, we proceeded to scramble, nearly
vertically, up a sizable hill. By this time, I was completely irrational with
exhaustion. But we had one more spectacular sight to see—the spring.
Ironically, the path we were on, had stairs leading down to the spring. But it
was 316 stairs, and I didn’t feel comfortable having a heart attack in a place
with no cell service, so we hiked down the hill we were on and drove to the Spring
parking lot.
I forgot to mention that Jason was trying to explain
something to me while I was being irrational at the top of the hill we had just
been on. Naturally, I ignored him. Then, as we hiked down to the springs, the
reality of what he had been trying to explain slapped me in the face like a
scared armadillo. As we walked on, I hoped that what I thought was about to
happen wasn’t going to. Then we reached the spring, which was cool, but we
could not get in, and I realized my enormous error in being a spazz and not
listening. There before me were the stairs. This time they were going up. All
316 of them. For. The. Love. Of. Pete. We had to go up the stairs and cross the
trail we had just been on to get back to the car. No amount of exertion had
been saved by getting in the car and driving to another parking lot. “That’s
what I was trying to tell you.” Like, from now on feed me a snack and try to
explain to me again in two minutes.
We climbed the stairs, both Jason and me were like sloths as
we ascended, while the boys used their youth and bound in front of us like
gazelles. Still, every once in a while, my sweet Lucas would come down to see
where we were and make sure we weren’t dead.
When we finally returned to the camper, we took cold showers
because we were too impatient to wait for the water heater. Evidently, Marcus
felt incredibly invigorated during his shower and bellowed, “I’m a man!!”
Then
we slept like dead horses.
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