Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday, so I got to do what I wanted to do, and I wanted to go on a family hike and go shopping, so WE DID. First, we made the trip to Ha Ha Tonka State Park, and I got to go on a nice stroll through the fall colors with my two favorite boys. The trails were a little wet, but there happened to be a break in the rain while we were at the park, so really, the weather was pretty much perfect! We took a trail to a natural bridge that we weren't able to make it to during a previous visit to the park.

Weird, red, Ha Ha Tonka bugs

We are super smart hikers and didn't look at any maps before we started walking down the trail and didn't know exactly where or how far we were going. We thought we were walking to the natural bridge and back, but the trail actually went on past the bridge and circled around another route back to the parking lot. When we first passed the bridge, we didn't realize that's what it was--it was cool, but I think we were expecting something a bit more dramatic or at least a rock formation over a creek. Maybe in the spring there's running water for the rock to form a bridge across, but we didn't take the rock that we walked under as a bridge since it didn't go over any water. Anyway, we walked passed what was the bridge, but we didn't know it, and I didn't take any pictures, partly because I didn't realize that was the bridge and partly because I thought we would walk under the cool rock again on our way back. We didn't. We ended up walking around back to the car and I hadn't taken any pictures! So while I ran down the slippery, rocky hill to take pictures, John and Colter lounged about on a bench and played with the leaves for a few minutes.

Colter found a giant leaf bigger than his head! It's hard to tell how big the leaf was from the angle in the picture, but trust me, it was a big leaf. It was a bit windy, and we had fun trying to catch leaves as they fell from the trees.After our walk, we got some frozen custard to celebrate my second 29th birthday and then hit the outlet mall in Osage Beach where I bought my own birthday presents. It was a good day!

Ha Ha Tonka

Not this ha ha Tonka....But this one! It's Ha Ha Tonka State Park in Camdenton, Missouri.

On the four hour trip to John's parent's house, we pass by a sign that points to Ha Ha Tonka State Park. Even though the sign always catches my attention, and I've been passing by it routinely for over seven years now, I had never found out exactly what was at Ha Ha Tonka. John had told me that there were some castle ruins, but I didn't really get what he meant. I thought there were some rock piles or something. When we randomly decided to check it out recently, I didn't expect to find this....A castle! Missouri has its own, real-life, medieval castle! Okay, not really. Some rich guy had it built in the early 1900s, but it's still a really cool castle! It's quite huge. The cute two-year-old in the big window should give you some idea how large the castle is. The castle is on a 250 foot high bluff overlooking Lake of the Ozarks. If one looks down the bluff (and I mean wayyy down) he/she can see Ha Ha Tonka spring (Ha Ha Tonka means laughing waters). It's an awesome place to have a castle; when I build my castle, I think I'll choose a similar site. :) Unfortunately, the rich man who had the castle built died in one of the state's first automobile accidents and didn't get to enjoy his finished castle. The castle did not last long after it was built either, for it burned in the 1940s leaving the rock walls that visitors to Ha Ha Tonka State Park now explore.*

As it was fairly late in the evening when we visited, we didn't have time to traverse much of the park before dark. We will definitely stop again to check out the several trails and natural wonders, which include some caves and a natural bridge. Hopefully, we can go back when it cools down this fall because the park looks like a fun place to do some Missouri hiking!

*Source: A sign in the park. :)