Meremac State Park

This is a fantastic park in the south eastern part of Missouri. The biggest attraction, other than lot's of cool places to hike is the Meremac river. This a wide, somewhat shallow, slow moving river that winds its way through the park. The campgrounds are beautiful and our campsite was near a big sandy playground. We spent two full days floating down the river in our inner tubes (one of the highlights of the whole trip). From the drop off point to the campground was about 1 1/2 hours. Even Nate and Savannah floated in their own tubes squealing with delight as we got into a massive water gun fight. It was fantastic. We went on a nature walk one morning and found a smaller creek with little fish of various shapes and sizes and even crayfish! The kids were so excited to try and catch everything with their crocs. Nature at its finest. Older kids than ours had permits to explore some of the caves and were grinning excitedly with their hard hats and cave lights. "WOW! I wish we could do that!" Joe exclaimed. Hmmm. These same kids were covered in slimy mud from head to toe, and I do mean head to toe. We could barely make out their eyes and even their hair was coated. The cave exploration definitely looked like a full body experience. We explored several safe (non-permit needed) cave openings on our walk, which seemed fine with me and certainly seemed dangerous enough for Joe and Louisa. Quiet, dark, dripping and well, cave-like. The type of place where a dragon or other fierce monster might be living. At the bathhouse, that night, I noticed the Rocky Mountain Spider Tick and Lyme's Disease warnings posted on the door. Great. Kev had noticed five smallish ticks on his legs after his hike to get the car from the river float drop-off point. I found a few on my legs that were tiny. The next morning I found five more attached to various parts of my torso. The kids each had one or two that were attached. Now we'll just have to watch for fevers and rashes as we head back home.
Before we left Uganda, we had talked of this year in the States being one of redemption. I would like an ant farm inside the house (Kev shudders at the thought that we are bringing them in and feeding them!), a set of hamsters (redeeming our view of rodents) and anything else I can think of that has educational value! So it was with great delight that I happened upon a smallish garter snake beside the playground. I called to Joe and stepped gently on the snakes tail to hold him in place. Now you should know that prior to Uganda, I have always loved snakes. In Uganda, no way, it is clearly a battle to kill as many as possible, but back here.... Joe came dashing up and lept back in horror. "Mom, what are you doing???" "Here," I said, "reach down and grab him by the back of his head and pick him up." Boy, I tell you, the power of a mom's confident voice. His eyes lit up and he immediately reached down and scooped up the snake. So for the next thirty minutes Joe and Louisa got a hands-on lesson on non-poisonous snakes and how very cool they are. Then, of course, we released him back into the wild by the banks of the Meremac.