Mother’s Day & Mother Nature
Life in the Midwest has a strong family presence. We have absolutely enjoyed being able to celebrate holidays with the MO crew this last 6 months. For Mother’s day weekend, we headed north to Columbia to meet with my mom, Jeff, Asa and Kelsey.
Mile: 9,994
Quote of the Blog: “As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was about to happen.” - Winnie The Poo
Song of the Blog: “Mother Nature’s Son” - The Beatles
On Saturday we got a quick 9-hole game of golf in at the LA Nickell Golf Course with Asa, Kelsey and Jarrett (Kelsey’s brother). We decided that we were a pretty great golfing crew, but might not win any golf scrambles any time soon. Since I am fairly new to golf, it is just nice to play golf with laid back and supportive people. That evening we went to a little bar along the Katy Trail called Coopers Landing, which follows the MO river. We missed the live music, though enjoyed sipping beers in each other’s company on a lovely MO spring night.
We met my mom and Jeff at the A-Frame at Les Bourgeois Winery in Rocheport on Sunday. The A-frame is located on a blufftop overlooking the Missouri River. It was a beautifully scenic spot to sample wine with good company. Being at the winery had me reminiscing about my old college days as well. A storm blew in while we were there, which motivated us to move along to the next stop. We traveled back to Columbia and decided to again go to the Ozark Mountain Biscuit Company restaurant. It has become one of our favorite Columbia restaurants. We had a bit of a wait, so we moseyed across the street to the Logboat Brewery Company for some libations while we waited. After another delicious meal at Ozark Biscuit and bar, we said our goodbyes for now and headed back to Rolla with full hearts and bellies.
We made a slight detour on our way back though. I had received many recommendations for a custard spot in Belle, MO, called “Bob’s Frozen Custard”. Let me tell you (or in MO that would be “lemme tell ya”), it was quite tasty. Belle, MO has a population of 1,300 people and some bomb custard. The cows live in the backyard of the creamery! Part of this journey that we are on is to find the country’s best ice cream. Actually, I just made that up…but we do like ice cream and we are going to be sampling a lot of ice cream as we travel around.
The following weekend, we decided that we were going to stay put and have a Rolla weekend. We finally got a chance to sleep in and have a mellow weekend, after all of our recent traveling around the Midwest. We did some research regarding outdoorsy opportunities nearby. We are used to hiking 10+ miles with epic mountain views in MT, though we have also learned to appreciate smaller hikes in lush dense forests. We have enjoyed the ability to nerd out over new bugs, flowers, animals and plants that we are not accustomed to seeing out west. On this particular weekend, we set out to explore the “Clifty Creek Conservation Area”. We hiked a little over 3 miles through the woods and eventually ended up along the creek bed. This area featured a large natural bridge that was created by a tributary of the Clifty Creek, carving through the Gasconade dolomite. I feel like we have learned a lot about rocks in the cave state so far. We have seen natural bridges featured on other nearby hikes and adventures as well.
Missouri is full of really fun and unique geological features. From the caves to the springs, we have been loving all the new scenery. We are looking forward to our ability to continue to explore and learn about our country’s natural features across as make this travel PT journey.