We were in Long Lane, Missouri since the 28th visiting our friends, Bill and Ginny Nasse. Ted lived at the Reynard Arms apartments after he got out of the military and came back to San Diego. Bill had also rented an apartment while he was starting a business in San Diego. Ginny and their children still lived in Los Angeles while Ginny took care of their business up there. She would come down on the weekends. They had lots of fun with several residents at the apartments having barbecues and get togethers. We had a good time catching up on their lives and ours.
Unfortunately we didn't have wi-fi so have gotten behind in our blogs so please be patient while I catch up!
The first night there Bill and Ginny took us to "The Cave Restaurat". We drove to the restaurant where we waited for a shuttle. It was raining pretty hard and the van took us up a narrow, rutted road up 1200 feet above the river. It was an "E" ticket ride if you know what I mean! You have to be old enough and lived in Southern California to understand what that means! The van stopped by an elevator that took us up to the restaurant that is totally in a cave. They have special equipment to help keep the spring water in the cave to a minimum. It was very interesting and the food was good. The owner, Gary, knows our friends and spent time with us telling us about the cave and his future plans. He's owned the cave for about 6 months.
The next afternoon Bill and Ginny took us to the Fantastic Caverns in Springfield, Missouri. In this cave they have a jeep that pulls a cart so you just ride through. It's not a very big cave but has some interesting things in it. It had two really large sink holes in it and lots of stalactites and stalacmites. There were a group of women scientists who went in by themselves in the 1930's to check the cavern out, crawling through a tiny hole and using candle power to see what they were looking at. I think they were very brave!
On Friday they took us to Bennett Springs. It is a State Park with a huge spring and fish hatchery. They also have a lodge, restaurant, campground and a general store. The spring averages 100 million gallons of water per day, every day! They stock the spring with rainbow and brown trout so fishing is very popular there. We saw a crawfish in the water and I took a picture of a gentleman's Rainbow Trout! It was the first beautiful, sunny day we had in a long time!
On Saturday Bill borrowed two ATV's from their neighbor. Bill has 5 to 10 acres around the house that he keeps mowed and the rest of it is wooded. There are lots of deer in the woods and his lets his friends hunt there during deer season. Hunting season for kids started on Saturday so we all wore bright colors in case anyone on one of the surrounding properties was hunting. We rode the ATV's around his entire property. He has a couple of ponds, a 50' deep by 200' wide sink hole that is probably a cavern and lots of springs. We had a fun ride!
We truly had a great visit with Bill and Ginny. It was fun to get to know them and they are wonderful hosts! Oh yeah, forgot to tell you how we got stuck in their yard! With all the rain, the truck got stuck in the mud, fortunately our RV wasn't stuck. Bill's son came over with his semi tractor and Bill hooked up his yard tractor and together they were able to pull us out. We ended up parking in the gravel driveway and they were able to drive the car around us in the grass without getting stuck and we were able to level the RV!
I've really enjoyed Missiouri (except for all the rain). The rolling hills and trees, it's very pretty. I found it interesting that the State Road names are all letters. We camped on UU Road in Cuba which was close to ZZ Road. Bill and Ginny live on P Road and we drove down A Road to get there!
Enjoying Missouri..."Ain't Life Grand!"
No comments:
Post a Comment