Another quiet, warm night, no one around although they said the place will be full of ATVers on the weekend, woke with the crows, the American bird.  Back through Bismarck, north on County Road N through Iron Mountain Lake, Graniteville, detoured into old Pilot Knob and saw a nice courthouse with Civil War history.

views of what I think Taum Sauk mountain, highest in Missouri.

Nice views from the road to Taum Sauk, unusual because there is so much forest everywhere.

Interesting history, you get a sense of being in a place of historical significance with plenty of mining in the past and some still going on.

Much red outcrop in the area, doesn't look like granite but could be.

To the Taum Sauk mountain trailhead, not exactly what I expected but I'll do my best.

Pretty forest, all deciduous, no pines here, watched a black and white warbler acting like a nuthatch

and perfectly flat, only a surveyor would know when you reached the top of the mountain.

I walked half a mile on an increasing rocky trail

to the junction of the Ozark Trail, a 350 mile trail that winds through the Missouri Ozarks, connects with the Arkansas high trail.  Looked pretty, not much used.  With the Missouri River and the Katy bike trail, some good things to do outside in Missouri that don't involve motor boats or ATVs.

Exhausted from the climb, I drove south on Hwy 21 in a valley, unusual, to Piedmont.  F The first time I saw clear stream, supposedly characteristic of the Ozarks, also the first time I saw streams called "branch."  Keeping an eye out for moonshiners, I continued on.  Many trailer houses along the highway, really, there have been since Nebraska, but the number and variety in Missouri are amazing.  Seems like every trailer from the 1970's is here somewhere, often two or three together.  Also saw the first of many very small, like two man, sawmills, all cutting one thing - railroad ties.  The lumbering exhibit in the State Museum described "tie hackers", men who beginning in the 1860's into the 1920's would cut ties by hand, usually from white oak, for a dime or a quarter a tie.  Times haven't changed all that much, and it looks like about all of the logging going on the Mark Twain National Forest.

 then east on Hwy 34 , increasingly busy, through Marble Hill, probably marble but i didn't see any, into Jackson in traffic, busy long retail strip to Cape Giradeau, old town with a lot of history behind a muraled floodwall.

 Glad to be out of traffic, I drove north ten miles to Trail of Tears State Park where the Cherokees and others crossed the Mississippi on their way to Oklahoma.  Displays in the visitor center , sad times, still sad and wrong after all these years.  Ah, but what a sweet campground!  I have found myself so looking forward to late afternoons in the Missouri state parks, this one up on a ridge, views across the Mississippi just to the east

The tenting campground in along a long, narrow ridge above the river and the valley to the the west, and drops off steeply on both sides.

again, almost empty

I sat in the sun, listened to woodpeckers, watched butterflies

and listened to the breeze in the tall, tall trees, oaks, but also tulip poplar and mountain ash near the north edge of their range.  A most beautiful forest, fitting end to Missouri, I toasted reaching the Mississippi with a glass of Oregon wine and retired a contented traveler.