Harry S Truman to Lake of the Ozarks State Park

Warm night in Harry S Truman State Park, stopped for a shower, Missouri parks have everything, even rules! 

 back to Hwy 7, past the Reel&Trigger Resort, kind of says it all, a few miles into Warsaw, wants to be a touristy town, not there yet but signs of hope: two fudge outlets! What is it about tourists and fudge, anyway? Up to the nearby HS Truman Dam Visitor Center, nice newer building (dam was completed late 1970's I think) with as nice view across part of the sprawling reservoir,  

good history of western Missouri, up on a hill with twenty or so vultures slowly wheeling overhead, catching the warm air rising against the face of the bluff. First time I noticed but has been a common and welcome sight across Missouri.

North on Hwy 65, still rolling countryside with farms and hay and something approaching hills

 then east on 52, south a few miles on 5 to Jacob's Cave, a private cave open to the public.

Not your National Park supercave experience, Jacob's Cave opens from a small gift shop, garrolous old owner Frank lives above.

  Missouri claims the most caves of any state so I thought I should visit at least one. According to  Frank,the  cave was discovered in the 1870's when Jacob Craycraft noticed cold air coming out of the ground on a hot day and climbed inside. Maybe, and there is some evidence the Spanish discovered the cave  long before that.  In truth, he was looking for galena, the ore of lead and a valuable mineral already in eastern Missouri, which has the old mines – and the associated mine cleanups – to show for it. No one else around, I had a private tour with a pleasant woman not from Missouri (they have an accent, for sure.) The main part of the cave open to the public varies in size, largest rooms perhaps fifteen feet high by thirty feet across, narrowing to tight passages, all the usual cave features, most of the most fragile (straws,etc) remarkably intact, and some unusual suspended ones that formed when the cave was filled with mud then scoured maybe half a dozen times during the ice ages (by water, not ice). Saw a leopard frog and a salamander but no bats although they are around. Pretty cool.

Out of the cave into a hot, muggy afternoon, on south on Hwy 5 along the west sode of the Lake of the Ozarks, usual mix of new and old lake tourist resort stuff, turned north at Camdenton up to Osage Beach and Lake Ozark. The reservoir has been around since the 1930's so the towns have had generations to assemble a nice collection of t hirt, trinket and, yes, fudge shops. Took a quick look at the dam

but too hot for all that, drove out to Lake of the ozarks State Park for a swim. Not what I expected, the water is a light, muddy brown, not unpleasant, but certainly not blue. Maybe why the catfish do so well.

On into the huge, something like 190 space campground, wound down to the water and spent several hours reading in the breeze under oak, hickory and locust trees, watching a white breasted nuthatch before dark.