It's My Life

Winter continues here and so does my reflection of warmer times. We had an amazing 2015 camping season that took us to new places and some of our old favorites. Reflecting on past trips and planning new ones is honestly how I get through these winter months.  Unanimously, The Taylor's and The Todd's agree that  Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park  was our favorite 2015 destination. Johnson's Shut-Ins is located near Lesterville, Missouri which is just over 100 miles south of St Louis, under 200 miles east of Springfield, and 295 miles southeast of Kansas City, MO, which is where we are based. Park Details: Johnson's Shut-Ins is a state park. Senior Citizens receive a discount. Special sites are designated ADA and can't be used by the general population. There are 5 different loops with a total of 85 sites. There is designated sites for camping, hike-in camping, camper cabins, electric only, electric/water, and electric/water/sewer sites. Due to the 2005 ...

Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. I have longed to go there for a few years but the distance from our home to the park is really...really far. So, we took a week off from work and made the 300 mile drive worth our effort. We started off at the week off at  Montauk State Park . We spent four days trout fishing before moving on over to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. Before we explored the Shut-Ins we drove up to  Elephant Rock State Park .  After all that rock climbing we were ready for a cool dip into the spring fed water. I did a lot of research before we left to go on vacation. I knew that a Shut-In was a constriction in a river-way. I knew that hundreds of people visit the Shut-Ins every weekend of the summer. I also knew that approximately five years ago an electric company's water reservoir breached sending 1.3 billion gallons of water downstream flooding this state park. I also knew that venomous copperhead snakes and even black bears were known to call this area th...