TRAVEL DAY
From: Springfield/Route 66 KOA Holiday Campground, Springfield, MO.
To: Lake Wappapello State Park, Ridge Campground, Williamsville, MO.
Day 374 – It’s warming up. At 7 a.m. this morning, it was 35 degrees and sunny. The high today was 68 degrees – a very pleasant day. We departed the Springfield/Route 66 KOA at 9:45 a.m. Our destination today was to be Lake Wappapello State Park near Wappapello, MO. We’ll be there 4 nights, principally to visit Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, one of our favorites.
Most of our journey was on U.S. 60, heading south from the campground, then east on the 60 to south eastern Missouri. We were going through the Ozarks and the Mark Twain National Forest areas. It was a few small towns amongst rolling hills that were covered with trees. The fall colors were rather muted, don’t know if that’s due to drought or what, but it was still pretty. We made one stop – for lunch in a church parking lot.
We arrived at our new campground, deep in the forest and hills, at 1:50 p.m. It was 67 degrees and sunny. We had reservations for site #41, our favorite campsite at this State Park. We are located near the end of a campground loop and at the time of our arrival, we were the only people camping on this loop. We are on the top of a hill overlooking Wappapello Lake. (Other trips here told us that there was a Lake view here – right now, this time of year, all the leaves are still on the many trees, so we cannot see the Lake from the campsite.) It’s a private campsite and we love it here. We have electric hook-ups. There is a dump station and potable water at a different campground loop.
We unpacked and set up camp. Rob put up the screened tent at the edge of the campsite so that we are overlooking all the trees below us. We sat outside until dinner time. Tomorrow we’ll be going to Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. The last time we were here, 11 months ago, all the migrating birds had already just passed through. We were disappointed. This time, we are hoping to have hit the timing just right.