Five days R&R in Piney Creek Wilderness, Missouri. September 2024

We arrived home on a Tuesday from our UK trip jet-lagged and bone-tired after a busy month away. That Thursday, we had a house full of visitors to feed and entertain, and then catching up with work, both domestic and business. Lanie had done a great job house-sitting, which made life easier. Except, maybe, that one time she forgot to disarm the alarm, resulting in my phone going into panic mode at 3 a.m. in the UK. We’ll write that off as a successful test of the alarm and the monitoring company.

By the time we’d been back for a week, Ginger was insisting on “At least five days on my own.” and I was ready for some lakeside R&R. Nothing for it but to head out on the trails then!

I planned to leave on Thursday, spend five nights camped at my favorite spot by Table Rock Lake, and come home in time for dinner on the following Tuesday. The forecast was a bit variable, with, shock, some light rain in the forecast Friday and Saturday. Checking the lake level online, it was about one foot higher than when I was last there in February, so that’s fine. The only puzzle I had was how to cram five-and-a-half days’ worth of food into my pack, especially as since I’ve been exercising regularly, I’ve been eating like a teenager!

And so it was, that after a morning spent cramming food into my food sack, I left for the drive down to the Pine View Tower Trailhead at Piney Creek Wilderness. I arrived at the Trailhead at one-forty-five, and by three-fifteen I was at the campsite, feeling quite hot. The portion of the ‘Farm Track Trail’ I refer to as ‘Shelobs Lair’ lived up to its name. I was covered in strands of spider webs.

I met one other person on the way in. He was camped on the lake shore near the tree line at the western end. When I checked the next day he had moved on. And that was the only person I saw the entire trip (bar a couple of people fishing out in the middle of the lake).

I have a very strange expression in the above picture. And yes, that’s another new hat I’m wearing (the inexpensive Outback hat I bought in 2020 couldn’t keep its shape, so I bought a better one).

My expression reminded me of something, and yes, after a bit of research, it seems very reminiscent of me when I was 4-5 years old, way back in the last century. Someone give that kid an Outback hat!