Vacation Fun - Day One

High Speed Internet? Check. Connection good? Check. At last! The long awaited day one:

Of course...as is usually the case with us...we didn't get on the road this morning quite as early as we had hoped. In fact, we ended up leaving just shortly before noon - about six hours after I crawled out of bed. That's okay though...I'm on vacation so it isn't like we HAD to be any where at any particular time.

We head on down the highway and decided we to stop and find a Geocache in Marshall, MO so we could add another square to our Missouri Delorme's Challenge (it's a story for another post when we complete the challenge). Quick stop - and thank goodness too because I REALLY had to go. Marshall's a cute little town. You should check it out some time. However, since we were on a mission to get to the lake before dark and we had a stop we most definitely wanted to make, we head on down the road.

The stop we had planned on making on the way was at the Bothwell Lodge just North of Sedalia, Missouri. This huge lodge is built out of the limestone from the area into the side of a very large cliff. The owner built it back in the 1800's originally as a get-away from the busy city life in Sedalia (he started the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia and was the president of one of the banks). The home originally started as a 7 room cottage but grew over time to be 31 rooms (13000 square feet). What was cool about it was that it was lavish like most of the mansions you visit. This guy was cool! We really enjoyed our visit and when I'm not sitting in the campsite with a weak signal, I'll posts some photos we took.

We then continued on the journey and stopped in Warsaw, Missouri at a swinging bridge that crosses Truman Lake. Mike was telling me how when his mother lived closed to there, they use to drive across that bridge all the time. When it was windy, they would find a way to avoid the bridge! Of course now, it is part of a walking trail. I couldn't imagine driving across it at all!
By this time, it was starting to get to be time to get to the lake and pitch the tent. When we arrived, we stopped at the first campground only to discover they were full for the weekend. So we went to another one and discovered much the same. Turns out, this lake has a national reservation company that holds your site if you reserve it. Afraid we were going to miss out on a great weekend at a beautiful lake, I called the 800 number from one of the maps to see if any sites were available. The lady I got on the phone was downright rude. Turns out, you have to make reservations three days in advance. There was no way she could look up to see if any spots were even available. We decided we would go try one final campground to see...luck would have it they had about 10 spots that were NOT reservable...and they were open! YEAH!! So we pitched the tent and made a little dinner and hung out working on Mike's homework.

Now for the part we aren't so excited about. The site we picked is directly below a street light! Boy...we sure do have a way of picking them don't we! It's alright...we will survive. We are just happy we found a site!

I must say now I am really ready for bed. No campfire tonight and it is actually a bit chilly so I think I will go climb into our 40 below sleeping bags and hunker down for the night.

C'ya!