The sermon we heard yesterday encouraged us to be flexible with our plans and know that sometimes what we think is our course of action will differ from what God has in store for us. We laughed as we thought about Saturday when our plans to ride the motorcycle for our weekend jaunt were dashed with a deluge of rain!
But in hindsight we were thankful we took the car because yesterday provided much more rain – more than half the time we were driving in the rain and had we been on the GoldWing, we would have just gone straight home when we left Poplar Bluff and missed some great scenery.
Instead we decided to take as many blue highways as possible and see some southeast Missouri sights that were new to us both. Going north out of Poplar Bluff on Highway 67 we came to Arcadia Valley where we had a delicious lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. Then we set out to see Taum Sauk Mountain State Park, Johnson’s Shut-Ins and Elephant Rocks.
We discovered Taum Sauk Mountain is a huge park but only provides limited camping in addition to lots of hiking trails – definitely not what we had in mind in the rain. No lodge, no services and a sign that said they don’t provide trash services so please pack out your own trash. Johnson’s Shut-Ins is temporarily closed for restoration but at least we know where it is for future travels.
Our last stop proved that the third time’s a charm! By time we got to Elephant Rocks late in the afternoon the rain had subsided and we were able to take a hike around the rocks and see these gigantic natural formations. The park is much smaller than the other two and probably won’t give us a reason to return but it did satisfy our curiosity.
We came back via a lot of 2-way highways full of twists and curves that will certainly be fun to try on the motorcycle. While Burl took his power nap I enjoyed playing race car driver since traffic was very limited. And now we’ve seen small towns that are too small to even garner a mention on the state map!
This little taste of off-beat touring has us thinking we need to plan our own Tour of Missouri on the motorcycle. Our state has so much to offer and we have miles to explore without even crossing the state line.
