It's My Life

We are a family that loves exploring. We explore by land and water. One of our favorite family past times is floating in the summer. Floating usually involves a canoe or a kayak and a river. It also usually involves some friends, some drinks, and maybe even some snacks. It almost always involves a fishing net and water guns.  We have gone canoeing with our camping buddies for the past several years. Each year in the dead of winter we start making a list of our summer plans. Perhaps this is one way we tolerate the winter!  We have floated on the  North Fork in 2013 , the  Niangua in 2014  in 2014, and this year we decided to float the Black River since we were already in the Southeast corner of the state. This year, not only did our camping buddies go with us, but so did her mom and her husband, as well as a work friend of mine and her family.  There were five canoes, 2 inflatable rafts, and 14 people in our floating group this year.  ...

Missouri is full of vacation spots. Some of them are obvious {Kansas City, St. Louis, Branson, even The Lake of the Ozarks}but some of them are less than obvious. We recently went on one of those less than obvious ones. We planned a four day getaway to Dora, Missouri to camp and canoe on The North Fork River. Here in Missouri, we call it a "float trip". What can you expect on a float trip? 1. Some driving. Most of the rivers that we float on are in the southern part of our state. It took us a good 5 hours {not including stops} to get to Dora, Missouri. At this point, even Missourian's are probably asking, "Where is Dora, Missouri?" Well, it is 40 driving miles away from West Plains, Missouri. As is typical with most float trips, you can not access the river by interstate. Nope, in fact you must get off the busy roads and take the roads less traveled. We prefer to pop in a CD full of good ole country music and just enjoy the ride. Of ...