We just got back from a mini summer vacation at Mark Twain State Park. We'd planned on a weeklong vacation over spring break, which was cancelled due to Covid, then a state park cabin, also cancelled, and then our annual summer vacation/camp was cancelled as well. I finally decided that we could pretty easily go socially distance in a new location and booked one of the last remaining cabins/yurts through the Missouri State Parks website. In fact, when I booked back on June 5, there were only 2 lodging reservations left - this one and one at Lake of the Ozarks where they've had a surge of Covid cases. Mark Twain is just a little over an hour from Columbia. I think they must have had some occupancy limits in place, there were several empty campsites despite a large "no vacancy" sign posted at the entrance. It wasn't crowded or busy despite being fourth of July weekend. We were able to keep our distance the whole time except once with a kiddo in the restroom, though it did feel weird not encouraging the kids to make friends/play with the other kids since there was a playground area.
We packed up all of our worldly belongings and arrived early Wednesday afternoon. The cabin was so nice!
I was confused checking in - then I checked my email and they'd send me an email with check-in procedure at 10am (when I was cleaning and trying to get ready to leave) that said to scan the code and check in through the state park's website, and in case of "connectivity problems" there would be alternate check-in procedures posted onsite. Well, we were out in the middle of the state park and I had no internet, but they left the key at the cabin and we got in and set up and figured we could ask about it later. (It did end up going through when we drove out to the public beach, which is good because I never saw any alternate posted anywhere).
Leah in her swim shirt at the picnic table.
Mama and James cooking s'mores.
More s'mores.
And Leah eating a s'more. If you couldn't tell, we had s'mores for dessert every night. Our routine was to eat an earlyish supper, go swim from 6-8 and then come back and shower/change and have s'mores.
More camp cooking.
We forgot the hotdog buns and the hamburger buns and the ketchup but somehow the kids survived. I thought Sam was in charge of the food and he thought he was just in charge of the cooler. We put the non-cooler stuff we'd bought straight into the tote and I was putting other stuff in the tote as it occurred to me, which turned out to be pretty much everything, I guess!
Sam did quite a lot of nature photography:
The weather was nice for us the whole time, except that it thundered when we woke up on the last day and threatened to rain so we couldn't get in a 4th swim. It probably also helped that there was a mini air conditioner in the cabin.
Amelie in her swim shirt.
We drove a little bit through the tiny unincorporated village of Florida, MO and saw several deer up close and a skunk!
You can swim anywhere in the lake as long as it isn't a designated boating area, and there was this rocky swimming hole very close to our cabin that we had to ourselves. James and I swam across and saw a snake swimming in the water - so we hurried up and swam back. We all stayed over two hours and then Sam and James stayed even longer.
More swimming near the cabin. We borrowed the floaties from Grandma Mary. We swam at the public beach twice, too, and it wasn't crowded at all - I think it helps that we went during the middle of the week and also that we went after supper - though unfortunately no pics from the other sandy beach.
We did a nature hike that went about like the nature hike last time. The weather was good, and James was enthusiastic for the first part, then we got off on the other trail and ended up going farther that we'd planned.
Lots of moss!
The last night, we were out and heard rustling in the woods. Sam wanted to shine the flashlight and I said he shouldn't in case it was our neighbor out there peeing, but he did, and there was a family of two babies and one adult raccoon staring back at us! It was the cutest thing ever! They looked adorable peering out at us from behind the tree. We turned the light off and they kept rustling around, so we turned it back on and they looked at us some more. This picture doesn't quite adequately capture the cuteness. We stored all the food and trash in the cabin (and the cabins next to us, did, too) so I'm not sure why they were rummaging so close. We made sure to burn the marshmallow sticks after that.
I already mentioned the snake, the deer, the skunk, and the raccoons - there was so much wildlife/nature on this trip. There was another big long stripy snake that did a faux rattle in the woods behind the cabin and lots and lots of tiny toads down at the swimming hole and more bigger frogs in the campground. Once at the public beach, there were seagulls sweeping and diving right by us, plus the usual spiders and ants and squirrels and rabbits.
The cabin had a little bedroom, a futon in the living area, and then this carpeted sleeping loft above the porch.
Drawing pictures at the table.
They were big, big fans of the lofted area. It was hard to take a picture up there, but we tried several times.
I liked all the pegs everywhere, especially since we did so much swimming. This photo doesn't show it, but they went all the way around the room and I used most of them.
Sam wanted to take pics of the cabin before we left.
I tried to put the futon up into a couch when we arrived, but Leah was not having it - she wanted to sprawl out on the whole futon bed. She stayed up til after 10pm both nights, I think.
I took our queen sheets, since that's what we have even though I assumed it would be a full bed, but it did turn out to be a queen, so that was lucky.
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