Pomme De Terre Lake - Exploring a Trio of Missouri Lakes

We are getting more practiced at hitching the trailer to the pickup. It was time to hitch up again and head to our second Missouri lake of this trip--Pomme De Terre Lake. We found a spot in another corp of engineer park, nestled in the trees and right along the river.

We were still learning about our weight distribution hitch and the best way to hook the pickup to the trailer. This day we learned a painful lesson. The weight distribution bars weigh over twenty pounds, and we had them leaning against the pickup so they would be easy to put in place. But while Denisa was loading some things in the back of the pickup, that three-foot-long bar crashed from its standing position and fell right on the top of her foot. Ouch!! If Denisa knew any cuss words, she would have used them! When she took off her shoe and sock to assess the damage, it was already bruising. Even though nothing seemed to be broken, this wasn't going to be good for our planned hiking!

So Mark had to do the rest of the hitching while Denisa hobbled around. It's a 40-minute drive from Stockton Lake to Pomme De Terre Lake, over hilly Missouri back roads. We took Road A through Donnegan, and today we had enough sense to not make any stops at Amish bakeries. Besides, there wasn't enough room in those parking lots that were designed with hitching posts for horses rather than RVs. We saw some lovely fall foliage on the drive, and found this popular river campground almost full on a Thursday. We took a picture down the Pomme De Terre River that was right behind our trailer. We decided we should kayak the river while we are camped here.

Since Denisa's foot was too swollen to put on her tennis shoes, it looked like she would be wearing crocs for the rest of this trip. But she did find that she could ride her bike. Before we left our nice spot along the river, we took a bike ride on the nearby trail.

It was a good day to ice a swollen foot, and cook out on our cast iron grill. Mark cooked a whole package of bacon, then some pork chops and hamburgers. While we really like the idea of the bracket on the side of the trailer that holds the heavy grill, we found that we don't like the grease splatters on the side of the trailer after cooking. We also found out that Denisa seemed to forget to pack a lot of the things we needed for our planned meals. She is used to traveling in a motor home where we have everything with us. The bad news was that she forgot to pack soft butter, salad dressing, hot dog buns, mayo, mustard, and hot sauce. So this day we had BLTs with your choice of either guacamole or raspberry jelly as a condiment. The good news was that we had lots of Amish desserts to eat with everything!

The next morning Denisa put on her stylish crocs, and we decided to try some short hikes. We visited another free Missouri state park. We tried the 2.5-mile-long Cedar Bluff Trail in Hermitage State Park. Amongst the cedars on the Cedar Bluff Trail were lots of maples that were at their peak fall color.

We were hiking slower since Denisa was hobbling along on her hurt foot. But this was an especially slow hike since we were stopping to take so many pictures.

We walked to the end of the trail at the swim beach, for more views of fall foliage across the lake.

That state park and that trail were so successful, we decided to try another. So we drove to Pittsburg State Park to try the Indian Point trail. Denisa's crocs made this 3.2-mile trail that was much faster because it was lined by oaks trees with brown leaves--rather than the colorful maples that we had enjoyed earlier. That means that we didn't need to stop to take so many pictures on this trail. We did have to take a photograph of some of the different-shaped leaves that we found on the forest floor. Even though they have different shapes, Google plant identifier thinks they all came from oak trees.

The turn-around point of the Indian Point Trail was a peninsula out in the water that looked over Pomme De Terre Lake. We had to look up the meaning of this unusually-named lake. We found that Missouri must have some French roots that gave this water the French words meaning "apple of the earth."

After hobbling through the first two days at Pomme De Terre Lake, we're ready for another form of transportation that will rest Denisa's swollen foot. But we'll talk about that on another blog soon.

Stockton Lake - Exploring a Trio of Missouri Lakes

We were itching to spend more time in our new Rockwood Geo Pro, so we cleared ten days on our calendar and planned a longer trailer trip. With our senior national park pass, we get half-price camping in Corp of Engineer parks. During the off-season, those campgrounds are already discounted, so we are averaging $5 per night for camping fees. This is going to be a very inexpensive vacation with some beautiful views!

We are way behind in blogging about our travels, so you should know that this trip started October 21, 2024. That's the time of year when reservations are no longer needed at Corp of Engineer campgrounds. Sites are available on a first-come-first-served basis, and arriving in the middle of the week will get you the best site in the campground with views of Lake Stockton out your window and no neighbors to share it with. We were blessed with temperatures in the 70s. The trees around us were filled with squirrels, and we watched as a hawk swooped down to snatch one very near us. We also watched eagles flying over the lake. We liked Stockton Lake!

If this sounds too good to be true, just know that our first long trip wasn't without a few hiccups. One of the reasons for the cheaper rates during the off-season was that water had been turned off at most campgrounds. Knowing that, we had researched and found that water was available at the Stockton Fire Department in town. By inserting a quarter in the machine, we could get 50 gallons of water from the fire station. We pulled into the spot beside the fire house and found the water hose. In our research we never saw anything that warned us that the water would blast out of a three-inch hose with no good way to get it into our one-inch water tank opening. But we tried anyway. In the picture below, you will see that Mark was drenched, trying to hold that water hose as it sprayed everywhere but into our water tank. It's a good thing it was a warm October, because both of us were wet by the time we gave up. We put in three quarters, using three different strategies, but only got a few gallons into the tank. We were wearing the rest of the water. We're guessing that the Stockton firemen have a hidden camera somewhere, and they were all chuckling at our watery escapades.

The next day we drove from the corp of engineer park to the Stockton Lake State Park. We like it that Missouri doesn't charge any day-use fees to visit their state parks. They are one of the few states that still has free admission. We decided to hike the Lakeview Trail and loop back on the Umbru Ridge Trail.

The loop was 9.5 miles long with only one lake view. The rest of the time we were in the trees. But we weren't alone in the trees. We saw two dozen armadillos, and heard another dozen in the woods beside the trail. We also saw three deer, a group of turkeys, and a snake.

The box turtle crossing the trail was happy to stop and pose for a close-up. With no water views, it was a rather boring trail. So we were glad to be entertained by some animal encounters. We stopped to eat our picnic lunch in the middle of this long trail.

We were also entertained by some geo-caching. We found several hidden along our trail. To the untrained eye, this might just look like any snarl of trees along any old trail. But if you look in the very center of the picture, you will see an old ammunition box filled with geo-caching treasures and a slip of paper to sign to prove that you found it.

Another geocache was hidden beside a fallen log. It's a small cache you can see in the lower right hand corner of the picture below.

Before we left the state park, we drove to check out their campgrounds. We were thrilled to see that their water spigots were still operational inside the park. So we filled every little bottle and jug we had with us. We understood how precious water was since we didn't have any for this first stop!

The second day we had beautiful blue skies, but winds that were 10-12 miles per hour. So we rowed our kayak to a part of Stockton Lake with high rock walls that protected us from the wind. If you look closely at that rock wall behind Mark, you will see some animals have made their homes there. Can you guess what animal it was?

Did you guess squirrel? We saw the movement among the rocks, and we realized that squirrels were darting along the seams in the rocks that connected their homes. Normally we see them flying around tree branches, but those same sure-footed skills were good among the rocks as well.

This old rock quarry was recommended as a good place to kayak by Denisa's cousin. It was also nice that it was ringed by leaves that were showing off their fall colors.

We were entertained by the little birds that were skittering along the rocky shore line . . . 

as well as the big birds standing like statues among the rocks.

We loved the combination of blue skies, rock walls, and changing fall foliage. We have wandered into more of God's wonders at Stockton Lake. Mark dropped Denisa off on the rocky shore and paddled out to take a picture from the water. 

From her spot on that rocky ledge, Denisa could take a picture of Mark paddling solo in the quarry.

It was another wonder that he returned to pick her up. It was a third wonder that he didn't complain when we had almost paddled home and Denisa realized that she had left her life jacket on that rocky ledge. Yes, we had to row all the way back, make the tricky landing, and retrieve the life jacket. It's the pits getting old and forgetful!

On our kayaking loop, we paddled up into the cove that housed our campground. It's always fun to find our RV from a view on the water. The campgrounds are pretty empty during this week in October.

On our drives in the Lake Stockton area, we saw some of our favorite signs. We love sharing the road with the horse-and-carriage Amish citizens.

It's a good day when you can see beautiful fall trees and a carriage on the same road.

We stopped when we saw a tent beside the road with a handwritten sign proclaiming "Fresh Pumpkin Day." We found out that pumpkin day was actually yesterday, so all the leftover goodies were half-price now. The baker kept retrieving things from the cooler to tempt us. We love buying at Amish bakeries, and we love a good deal even more. We bought a fresh pumpkin cake roll, pumpkin crunch, pumpkin bars, chocolate chip cookies, apple crunch, fresh apples, and zucchini. Our total was $20! We should have turned around and went home right then, but we were actually heading to the tiny intersection called Donnegan, Missouri, just one more mile down the road. We went to the Ozark Country Kitchen, where we found half-price on monster cookies and carrot cake. And who could resist Mark's favorite pecan sticky buns and apple butter? And Denisa loves banana cake bars. Further down the road we found an Amish discount grocery where we always stock up on the granola bars we eat when we are hiking. 

We came home with a shameful load of Amish goodies! Most of this would usually go in the freezer, to be nibbled out on a more leisurely pace. But it's too much for our tiny trailer freezer. So what should we do? Denisa set out to invite everyone in this campground to an Amish dessert tasting party. We invited all our neighbors and the ranger for a 3:30 Amish happy hour. We had a good time, but we didn't even make a dent in this stash of goodies!

After consuming way too many calories, we needed some more exercise. So we headed out on a bike ride.

The sun was low in the sky, lighting up the rock walls that surround the quarry where we were kayaking earlier.

This bike loop is called the Crab Tree/Quarry Loop. We would highly recommend this combination of lake views and shaded fall foliage paths. It was almost dark by the time we finished our loop.

That bike ride was so much fun that we decided to do it again the next morning. The quarry was lit up by the morning sun this time. 

The sumac bushes were showing off their bright red leaves as we headed back to our camp site. We have enjoyed our time at Stockton Lake--the first of a trio of Missouri lakes we explored this trip.

Mark is Working on Modifications to the new Trailer

Our home-owner's association doesn't allow for RVs to be parked in our neighborhood permanently. So we now have an added expense of renting a storage spot. But we can park the trailer in the driveway temporarily, and Mark used this time to work on some modifications to the Geo Pro. He spent a lot of his time laying on the driveway doing things that Denisa doesn't even pretend to understand. He'll have to write the blog that explains his modifications to the solar and electrical systems later.

But Denisa does understand the need for storage in these tiny RVs, and she certainly appreciates Mark's work. On each side of the bed, we each have a tiny hang-up closet. This is basically all the storage space we have for our clothes. It's not a very tall closet, and Mark's shirts are so long that they puddle at the bottom of the closet.

We decided to leave one closet for a few hang-up clothes. But in the closet on the other side, Mark built shelves out of light weight wood. 

Remembering that we can't add much weight to this RV, we also found some cloth storage boxes that can stack two deep into the closet. Now we can keep lots more clothes organized in this configuration of the space!

Many RVs have good storage under the dinette benches. But we found our benches were filled with heater vent pipes and the water heater. There was just a little unused space, and Mark reconfigured it into a box that will fit our fans and a ceramic heater.

Our couch is surprisingly comfortable with its flip-out foot rests. But we found that the four inches between the back of the couch and the murphy bed made a black hole where things could be lost and never found again. We read about some foam rubber wedges from Amazon that would fill this space just right.

Those wedges seem like awfully big items to add to our limited space. But we get double duty from them. They are also used at the head of our murphy bed to extend it in length. They also plug another black hole when the bed is down where we were losing things--like our pillows at night.

Mark also added a paper towel holder and two bath towel racks. Those don't seem to be worth too much explanation or a picture. But it's now nice to have a place for all our towels--paper and cloth. 

During our first time pulling the trailer down the highway, Mark saw that he had lots of blind spots. He was used to our motor home, with a rear camera and two side cameras to show the traffic around him. So he installed a rear camera on the back of the trailer, with a screen mounted on the pickup's windshield. It's nice to know when there are vehicles right behind us!

Mark also installed another solar panel on the top of the trailer. But now we're getting way over Denisa's head in more ways than one. Those modifications are more complicated, and deserve a blog of their own.

Our Maiden Voyage in the Geo-Pro

We couldn't wait to go camping! Between the time of putting the motor home for sale, and then doing our research to buy another RV, it's been a long time since we've been on a camping trip! So we picked a nearby lake for the maiden voyage of our new Geo Pro trailer. Mark was a pro at backing our big old motor home into a camping spot. Of course, he also had nine years of practice. Let's just say that the first attempt at backing the trailer into our camp site wasn't pretty. It's a whole different process backing a pickup with a trailer that can pivot in strange directions, and Denisa had no idea of how to help with this new process. But we eventually got settled into our new spot and got practice in leveling our trailer. In the motor home we were used to pressing a button, and the automatic levelers took over from there. Let's just say it's a little less automatic with our little trailer. But we'll be able to get into and get level in much smaller spots now (once we have some practice).

We walked down to the dock at Clinton Lake where we were staying. The water was perfectly still the first evening when we arrived. We found out that we should have jumped in the kayak right then, as we had some wind the rest of our stay.

We weren't the only ones stopping in at Clinton Lake. The white pelicans were migrating through, and the locals told us that these birds usually stop in during their trips between their summer and winter homes.

 While Canadian Geese are large birds, they look small when they are hanging out with these big white pelicans.

We have camped at Clinton Lake before, but it was on the north side at the state park. Since we are older and wiser this time, we are staying at the Cedar Ridge campground on the south side of the lake. We are older (so we now have our national park senior pass) and wiser to take advantage of the half-price senior rate at this Corp of Engineer Cedar Ridge park. We are enjoying $11 per night camping rates on this maiden voyage! 

On this maiden voyage Denisa was dusting off the camera and taking way too many pictures of the water birds we saw. So forgive her for randomly sprinkling in those pictures.

Our trip to Clinton Lake several years ago was during a time of too much rain, when the boat ramps were flooded and we couldn't get on the lake. Even though it was windy on this big lake, this trip we put our inflatable kayak on the water and did some paddling through the dead trees in the water.

Perched among those dead limbs were a flock of vultures. They were drying their wings in the wind as we paddled by.

On another day, we made a ten-mile road trip to Lone Star Lake. A smaller and quieter lake, it had some protection from the wind. We kayaked around the entire edge of the water.

Speaking of water, we have to get used to the new holding tank sizes in our new Geo Pro trailer. In the motor home we had a 90-gallon fresh water tank, a 70-gallon gray water tank, and a 50-gallon black water tank. In this new trailer we have a 31-gallon fresh water tank, a 27-gallon gray water tank, and a 27-gallon black water tank. Yeah, that's about a third to half the size of the tank capacity we were accustomed to. That means we will have to monitor our water resources a lot more carefully now.

Speaking of turtles--well maybe we weren't talking about turtles. But Denisa was taking pictures of the turtles sun-bathing at Lone Star Lake.

During this maiden voyage, we spent most of our time outdoors. But we were anxious to try out the trailer's amenities. We can report that the RV mattress it came with is as bad as we thought it would be. But purchasing a nice four-inch memory foam topper made it quite comfortable.

We also wanted to try the cast iron grill that attaches to a rail on the side of the RV. We cooked most of our meals outside--which included grilled pork chops and fried potatoes one evening.

We also had pancakes on the grill for breakfast. We're still trying to decide if this heavy cast iron grill is worth its weight. It definitely has some hot and cool spots. But it plugs into our propane tanks easily, so it seems to be a good addition for boondocking trips. But it is really heavy in a trailer where we are trying to keep the weight to a minimum.

It's been more than a year since we've had smores at a campground, and that seems to be a sweet way to finish up this first camping trip. The maiden voyage in the Geo Pro was a success!