RV weekend- Mark Twain Lake, MO May 12-14 '17

Finally a weekend without rain and also Mother's day weekend. Everyone has their own family plans. The kids are now out of the house with their own relationships and families and we are alone. Off in the RV for the weekend. Let's go somewhere we haven't been and let's go away from the flooding in southern Missouri. Mark Twain Lake in North Central Missouri. I through a dart at the map of campsites and came up with Ray Behrens. This was a great choice. RB is actually an Army Corp of Engineers park with beautiful sites and really well maintained. it is right next to the Mark Twain Dam and Spillway so it is all part of the ACOE land.
We went up on a Friday afternoon, planning to stay until Sunday late morning when we wanted to get back home as it turns out Emily having her own family now, still wanted us to cook Mother's Day dinner at our house! somethings never change......

He got up to the campsite around 5:30 pm. Now the routine for us is to eat pretty well when we take the RV out, compared to when we just camp. So this means a trip to the meat market for fillet mignon and other goodies for at least one night. This I did and brought home everything and put it in the refrigerator in the garage to move into the RV later. And guess where all the food still is? yep in the garage refrigerator. So after setting up the grille outside I realized we had no food for the weekend.

Luckily the RV is stocked with dry goods, peanut butter, some rice sides, etc. It was certainly not what we hoped for on Friday night, but no one went hungry and I did manage to pack all the desserts! 

We spent a beautiful night lounging and watching movies. The campsite was quiet and there was a nice cool breeze coming off the lake at our site.

The next day we got up and after breakfast, which I did have we decided to take a walk around the campground to check everything out, we like to look at other RV's and also it is usually several miles of sites to wonder around so it is a good morning walk. 

We cam across a little trail- Hickory Bluff Trail and Overlook. it was a nice wide path through the woods of about 2.5 miles each way.

Hickory Bluff Trail 

I bought an app for my iphone called Pro-Cam to help the quality of the iphone. I mostly want to improve the macro photos I like to take without having to carry another camera on the trail, so I am trying it out here. Seems to work better than using the standard camera software in the iphone 6S

a little snake friend in the leaves on the overlook trail 

A really picturesque pond surrounded by Irises

Lily pads on the pond

After our morning walk, which gave Vicky more than 10,000 steps on your fitbit, so it would stop vibrating her wrist! We went the 19 miles up to Monroe City to the only grocery store in the area. We picked up some steaks and other items for dinner and then headed back to the RV

We made a trip over to the ACOE visitors center. It looks brand new and overlooks the Dam directly behind and below the building.

Mark Twain Lake Dam and Spillway

Salt River, directly below the spillway is the source of Mark Twain Lake

They also had a very lovely Vietnam Memorial at the site

A lovely weekend to spend outside

Back to the RV for relaxing. Just as it was getting dusk, I lite the fire and we just sat and relaxed for the next 5 hours! 

Sunday morning dawned, another perfect day, Breakfast, clean up and off to home to celebrate Mother's Day with Emily's family.

Mark Twain Lake just 85 miles from our house and a really great location to spend the weekend.

Ray Behrens Campsite @ Mark Twain Lake