I feel like Missouri just kinda happened while I wasn't looking. One second we were cruising up on St. Louis, and the next we were leaving the state.
One of my very awesomest friends lives in St. Louis, so we took the opportunity to crash with her for a few nights. I have spent a lot of time in St. Louis over the years, but I had some unfinished business... and so did Ryan.
For Ryan, that was drinking an Abraxis on draft at Perennial Brewing Co. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in yapping with my friend, I failed to take any pictures. I will say that the place is super clean, very hip, and the small plates were very appealing (but I was still full from my ham panini at Tin Man).
My unfinished business was cleaned up the next day, when we visited The Twisted Ranch. It's a ranch-dressing themed restaurant. Now, there's a thing about being Ohioan. It's like we're all required to dip stuff in ranch dressing. Not just veggies and salads, but fries. Pizza. Crackers. Just dip it. The Twisted Ranch has many, many, many types of ranch dressing, infused with different flavors, so we had to get a flight of 13 ranches. Cilantro Lime. Sriracha. Goat Cheese. Smoky. Garlic Parmesan. Even the bloody Mary is made with ranch-infused vodka.
It fully lived up to the hype, and we spent the rest of the day rolling around on the sofa, gloriously full of ranch.
The next day, Ryan and I were up and at 'em again. This time, we had plans to hike the tallest peak in Missouri... which was not that tall. Still, I had some trepidation, since I am not a climber. Uphill is not my bag. I will hike all day on moderate hills, but nope. No climbing.
So we stopped by the Mastodon Historical Site to get my mind off of all that, and warm up with a little half-mile hike.
I get pretty excited about all things archaeological, so this was a nice little geek-out for me. I'm starting to drag Ryan down this path, too. He's super into the Clovis people, now that he knows who they were.
But Taum Sauk called, and said we better get our butts there if we wanted to hike this peak, so we hustled back on the road.
I'll let you in on a little secret: Getting to the highest point in Missouri is actually pretty easy. It's wheelchair accessible, in fact. You park in this lot, then follow a sidewalk around the bend, and bam- there it is.
It's when you go beyond that, and follow the Mina Tauk Falls signs (including part of the Ozark Trail), that things get a little weird. Hairy. I mean, have you ever seen Lord of the Rings?
You can take the loop clockwise or counterclockwise. We decided to go to the right, so the trail down t the falls was mostly bouncing from wet rock to wet rock, trying to find the red trail blaze that was painted on rocks along the way. One memorable part had us shimmying along a large boulder while a trickle of water ran below us... just enough water to spoil your day if you fell.
The Ozark Trail part of it was actually pretty simple by comparison. The view was gorgeous no matter where you looked, and all too soon, we were back at the car. We managed to smoke a difficult-rated trail in 1 hour at 54 minutes. Oops.
Now here's where things got rough. See, once we got in the heart of the Ozarks, our phones lost all service. All of it. We'd been relying on our phones to find campgrounds, since our physical map is from 2006. No cell phone service meant we were kind of winging it on finding the place we'd picked out for the night.
Imagine how pleased we were when we got there by the whims of magic, only to find it was closed. The helpful folks in town suggested we try another place... which was also closed. I found a whiff of cell service and managed to find another promising spot 20 miles away, so we headed off. Only that place didn't exist.
"We'll head into the Mark Twain National Forest!" Ryan said hopefully. "Surely there's camping in a National Forest!"
To avoid any more anxiety surrounding this topic, I'll assure you there is camping; however, it is not marked on any signs, any maps, and the natives don't even know about it. We spent a great deal of time circling the forest, stopping at different places, asking people where they camped, only to find out that people raised in a forest were completely unaware that you could sleep in it.
Finally, we found a campground that wasn't technically open, but had off-season areas available. We spent the night cuddled up with a flock of gnats, but it was better than nothing.
In the morning, it was off like the wind to Arkansas, with dreams of canoeing, hiking, and most importantly, gas stations.
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