Little House on the Prairie in the Ozarks!…Montauk State Park, MO 6/1

We were enjoying hanging around the campsite so much this morning we didn’t leave until about 11:30. It felt simply wonderful eating papaya while overlooking Table Rock Lake. From there we took a very meandering drive through Mark Twain National Forest just roaming around the countryside of the Ozarks. Eventually we came into Mansfield, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder in her later years. In fact, this is the place where she wrote most of her Little House on the Prairie Books. We spent several hours here taking a tour of her home, museum and the Rock House. We were amazed at the simple beauty of the home, particularly the Arts & Crafts style living room, library and music room. I really appreciated the craftsmanship of Laura’s husband, Almanzo. He created a gravity fed cistern water system that was funneled through their wood stove, thus giving them hot water. He made several pieces of their furniture and many personal items for Laura. What a guy! The natural light throughout the house seemed particularly advanced for a house built in 1913. Their property was situated on a peaceful wooded knoll. It’s easy to see how Laura got the inspiration to write here. (Today’s pic is Ned standing next to the back of the house). We continued our drive through the Ozark Mountains finally pulling into Montauk State Park after 6. Wow!! This is one of the most beautiful State Parks we have seen. It definitely makes the top 5 list of all our travels. It’s predominantly a fisherman’s paradise, complete with fish hatchery. We picked out a great campsite backed up to the Current River and then hopped on our bikes to explore the park. There’s a rustic lodge, several cabins, an old mill and the Current River running through-out. It was unbelievable beautiful, especially in the dusk to watch the fly fisherman in their waders casting in the turquoise water as the mist rose up above the river. We had fun feeding the fish at the hatchery and biking around all the beautiful parts of the park and enjoying the endless scenery of the river. We grilled up some bratwurst at the campsite, but ate so late that we had to wear our headlamps to see what we were eating. It was still quite warm at 10:30 so we decided to wade into the river, which turned out to be bone aching cold. Boy, did we get cooled off quickly. I can’t quite describe how magical it was, standing ankle deep in the river, looking up at the stars as the fireflies put on a light show for us. We were joined by a very large turtle, several trout and an opossum that wandered by in the moonless night.