Mark Twain Lake, Missouri - April 4th to 6th, 2022
Not every day is sunny and warm. Traveling in a camper van means you spend a lot of time outdoors and you are at the mercy of the weather. But that doesn’t mean you trap yourself indoors at the slightest forecast of rain or cold. Grab your warm clothes and rain gear and take a chance. You may find that you’ll have a wonderful time despite the weather.
From Hutchinson, Kansas, we drove to Kansas City to visit with relatives. During our visit, we walked around Lenexa Lake in Black Hoof Park. It is a wonderful place for a walk so close to the city.
On Monday we drove the backroads from Lenexa, Kansas, to Indian Creek Recreation Area on Mark Twain Lake in Missouri. Along the way, we stopped and walked around the town square of Carrollton to stretch our legs and admire the impressive Carroll County Court House building.
Then we visited the Prenger’s Foods grocery store in Brunswick for a few needed items and headed up the hill to Brunswick City Park for a picnic lunch. It was a cute little park, but the restrooms were closed, probably for the season. So we stopped at the Casey’s gas station on the way out of town for gas and a potty.
As we were driving along the farm fields, we noticed so many of them covered in purple. Later we learned that the purple flowers were henbit, a weed that takes over the empty fields in the spring, but they fade before the crops grow, not causing any problems for the farmers. Henbit is also edible.
What also caught our eye were all the pecan orchards. Brunswick was declared the Pecan Capitol of Missouri in 1972. They hold an annual pecan festival the first weekend of October.
We made it to the Indian Creek Recreation Area in the late afternoon. The campground is run by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and, like so many of the campgrounds they operate, it is lovely. The sites are well spaced in the woods along the shores of Mark Twain Lake. Our site was at the end of a loop, with views of the lake through the trees from on top of a small bluff. A trail next to our site led down to the rocky shore. This time the water was turned on in the campground. A bathhouse with flush toilets and non-coin showers was a short walk from our site.
Since it was a nice day and the weather forecast predicted rain for the next day, Ann spent the evening shooting the video for our Season Four Prep (Preparing for Season Four: Alaska Bound 2022).
It was raining when we woke up Tuesday morning. The rain cleared up by 11 am, so we drove over to Mark Twain State Park on the other side of the lake to go for a hike. When we arrived at the state park, we discovered the museum at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site was open. This surprised us because Google Maps indicated it was closed. We should have double checked the state park website, as it has the correct hours of operation on it.
The small museum was interesting. We had the museum all to ourselves and the friendly park ranger was a wealth of information. Inside the museum is the two-room cabin that Samuel Clemens was born in. The cabin was relocated from the nearby town of Florida. Other highlights of the museum is the original transcript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and a twenty minute film of Samuel Clemens’ life.
After visiting the museum, we drove over to the trailhead for the Post Oak Trail. We combined the Post Oak Trail with the White Oak Trail to form about a three mile loop. The trails followed along the lake shore, with views out over the lake through the trees. There were no leaves on the trees yet to block our views. The trail started out a little muddy, but then was fine most of the way.
The ground was still covered with the brown oak leaves from the previous fall. Moss and lichen provided patches of green among the carpet of brown. A variety of small flowers alongside the trail let us know that spring was arriving. The air was filled with the sounds of birds chirping from the tree tops, woodpeckers drumming the trunks for insects, water gently lapping up against the shore, and the rustle of leaves alternating with the crunch of small rocks from our footsteps along the trail.
A tall tree stump stood like a monument with its checkerboard patterns of decaying bark. Turkey vultures soared above our heads, riding the air currents. In the distance, four deer bounded off into the trees to get away from us. We completed our 2.9 mile hike in one hour and twenty minutes, climbing only 144 feet in elevation. It was hike number five of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022.
After our peaceful hike, we checked out the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Shelter over at the Buzzard’s Roost area. The picnic shelter was built by African-American Company 1743 of the CCC in 1941.
On our way back to Indian Creek Recreation Area, we stopped to check out the town of Florida, where Samuel Clemens was born. There is not much left of the old town. A marker indicates where the birthplace cabin was located. A log cabin, pieced together from several different cabins in the area, stands to represent what some of the homes may have looked like years ago.
We managed to finish dinner back at the campground before the rain started up again. It turned out to be a pretty nice day considering the forecast. We’re glad we didn’t let the forecast keep us from exploring the area.
Check out our related video: Mark Twain Lake, Missouri
(Ann)