Last year we went someplace near Camdenton, MO in the Ozarks. Bridal Cave:
At the bottom of that green water (above) are a raft and a wooden ladder made with wooden pegs. Both were discovered when the cave was being made accessible to the general public. Prior to that, the entrance to the cave was small, and a person could only get in by crawling, meaning the raft was carried in piece by piece and assembled inside the cave by lantern light. The ladder would have been used to access a hole leading to Spirit Lake beyond, which is inaccessible to non-spelunkers like us.
Above are the ruins of a mansion at Ha Ha Tonka State Park. I plan to rebuild the water tower (not pictured) and live in it when I'm rich and own the entire park. Also not pictured is the river in the ravine? chasm? below where blue green water bursts out of the hillside. It's beautiful. Alas, the river is currently poisoned by garbage dumped into a sinkhole some miles away. But I'll get that cleaned out when I'm rich--don't worry about it. Below are more pics from the state park:
And here's Lake of the Ozarks and Jake kayaking:
Anne Queen of the Reptiles with one of her minions:
All the kids wanted to do was stay in the vacation rental and watch movies, except when Anne had a lizard to chase or when it was sunset and Anne the romantic wanted to sit on the dock and tell stories while the sun went down. We had to drag Damon out of the van away from his book to hike around Ha Ha Tonka. Family vacations make me long to be an empty nester.
2017: No pics of Crater of Diamonds. My fingers were probably too numb with cold to operate the iPad. But here's the lake where stayed near Perryville, AR:
