Happenings of our lives

March 5th to 6th, we went to the Talbot Conservation area on the Spring River Nature Trail that is there.  We hiked the trail which was really pretty.  There were overlook areas to the river which were pretty.  After hiking, we camped in the conservation area’s camping area.  We were the only ones there.  We ended up forgetting our stove’s fuel so we couldn’t cook anything but fortunately we also brought Emily’s homemade crackers and cheeseball so we were fine.  We ended up sleeping in the car and probably didn’t get the best night’s sleep ever.  But it was a fun time.

	#	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-
	2	1.000 mi	30m 08s	29m 19s	1.99 mph	6.29 mph	896 ft	712 ft
	3	2.011 mi	1h 14m 08s	1h 12m 21s	1.63 mph	9.40 mph	1394 ft	1240 ft
	4	2.081 mi	1h 16m 00s	1h 13m 50s	1.64 mph	9.40 mph	1503 ft	1362 ft
Summary		2.081 mi	1h 16m 00s	1h 13m 50s

Spring River Nature Trail

On Feb 20, 2010, we went hiking in the Busiek State Forest. It is only about 15 minutes south of where we live. There are tons of loop trails that makes for a close source of fun hiking. We did the Red Loop this day.

	#	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-
	2	1.002 mi	27m 32s	26m 53s	2.18 mph	5.25 mph	269 ft	318 ft
	3	2.002 mi	59m 56s	59m 05s	2.00 mph	5.86 mph	666 ft	587 ft
	4	3.004 mi	1h 29m 50s	1h 27m 52s	2.01 mph	7.04 mph	912 ft	896 ft
	5	3.574 mi	1h 48m 26s	1h 46m 13s	1.98 mph	7.04 mph	1020 ft	1115 ft
Summary		3.574 mi	1h 48m 26s	1h 46m 13s

Busiek State Forest

So, in order to redeem myself for the ill fated Christmas Eve trip, Jordan and I went hiking in New Year’s Eve. We got a comment on our smugmug gallery about a specific waterfall that we had been too before. The guy wanted to know the latitude and longitude of the waterfall. We hadn’t been back to Pee’s Holler since Jordan got his new GPS, so we decided to go back so we could tell the guy about it. It is also nice because Jordan wants to put things like that on his new website.

So we drove to Hercules Glade and started hiking. You’ll notice that pretty much ever picture with Jordan has him looking at his GPS and setting a waypoint.

I really like going to places during different seasons. The last time we hiked Pee’s Holler, it was late summer and the leaves were all still on the trees. This time we went and the trees were mostly bare. It felt like a totally different place. Anyway, we had fun hiking and came back home and spent New Year’s Eve with Heidi and Ryan.

Click on the picture to go to the gallery.

	#	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-
	2	1.006 mi	35m 41s	34m 59s	1.69 mph	5.02 mph	190 ft	482 ft
	3	2.001 mi	1h 11m 13s	1h 09m 30s	1.69 mph	7.16 mph	486 ft	942 ft
	4	3.002 mi	1h 47m 50s	1h 45m 22s	1.67 mph	7.16 mph	787 ft	1266 ft
	5	4.006 mi	2h 12m 24s	2h 09m 33s	1.82 mph	7.16 mph	1053 ft	1444 ft
	6	5.007 mi	2h 37m 15s	2h 33m 44s	1.91 mph	7.16 mph	1407 ft	1634 ft
	7	6.000 mi	3h 07m 35s	3h 03m 31s	1.92 mph	7.62 mph	1765 ft	1847 ft
	8	6.064 mi	3h 09m 24s	3h 05m 18s	1.92 mph	7.62 mph	1808 ft	1850 ft
Summary		6.064 mi	3h 09m 24s	3h 05m 18s

Pees Holler

The day after Christmas Emily and I went back to the Devil’s Backbone wilderness that we went on Christmas Eve. This time, we hiked the whole McGarr trail loop. It was so much fun (Emily probably didn’t think it was as much fun as I did but she still enjoyed it deep down, I’m sure). It wasn’t raining this time which was good. Part of the trail comes really close to the white fork river and you can actually go into it. There is a good spot to set up a tent by the river so it would make a fun backpacking trip in the summer because you can go swimming and stuff since the river is big enough. I tried to get her to go camping this trip but we decided to make it into a day hike (with the promise that we could hike Pees Holler in the Hercules Glade wilderness area, post to come). I’ll post a map soon enough so you can see where we went.

Click on the picture to go to the gallery.

	#	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-
	2	1.002 mi	24m 22s	24m 03s	2.47 mph	4.61 mph	781 ft	482 ft
	3	2.001 mi	47m 42s	47m 20s	2.52 mph	5.09 mph	1001 ft	741 ft
	4	3.005 mi	1h 14m 22s	1h 11m 33s	2.42 mph	10.46 mph	1332 ft	1299 ft
	5	4.006 mi	1h 50m 42s	1h 46m 18s	2.17 mph	10.46 mph	1824 ft	1732 ft
	6	5.003 mi	2h 29m 33s	2h 23m 48s	2.01 mph	10.46 mph	2185 ft	2087 ft
	7	6.001 mi	2h 59m 40s	2h 53m 45s	2.00 mph	10.46 mph	2644 ft	2612 ft
	8	7.007 mi	3h 23m 13s	3h 16m 35s	2.07 mph	10.46 mph	2966 ft	2828 ft
	9	8.001 mi	3h 47m 34s	3h 40m 54s	2.11 mph	10.46 mph	3317 ft	3002 ft
	10	9.004 mi	4h 11m 39s	4h 04m 55s	2.15 mph	10.46 mph	3596 ft	3235 ft
	11	9.025 mi	4h 12m 46s	4h 06m 01s	2.14 mph	10.46 mph	3615 ft	3255 ft
Summary		9.025 mi	4h 12m 46s	4h 06m 01s

McGarr Trail Loop

Emily and I went out to do some car camping on Christmas Eve. We loaded up all our gear and our wrapped presents into our car and took off to a section of the Mark Twain National Forest that is near West Plains in the Devil’s Backbone Wilderness. We parked our car at the McGarr Ridge trailhead. (Eventually I’ll put a map on here like I did with the last post). It was a really beautiful area and I’m really glad we went. Anyway, it started to rain really hard while we were hiking. We had rain coats and stuff but Emily doesn’t really like the rain so we turned around to the car and ended up going home the same day. We found the McGarr springs which was a pretty little spring coming out of a hillside. It was just really pretty and other than the rain, it was a fun little adventure. Emily will post soon about our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day adventures.

Click on the picture to go to the Gallery

	#	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-
	2	1.002 mi	33m 42s	33m 26s	1.78 mph	6.38 mph	262 ft	230 ft
	3	2.008 mi	1h 14m 18s	1h 12m 33s	1.62 mph	8.30 mph	823 ft	797 ft
	4	3.005 mi	1h 40m 42s	1h 38m 49s	1.79 mph	8.30 mph	1047 ft	991 ft
	5	4.003 mi	2h 10m 39s	2h 08m 29s	1.84 mph	8.30 mph	1276 ft	1243 ft
	6	5.002 mi	2h 31m 08s	2h 28m 35s	1.99 mph	8.30 mph	1476 ft	1457 ft
	7	6.004 mi	2h 49m 39s	2h 46m 58s	2.12 mph	8.30 mph	1637 ft	1617 ft
	8	6.017 mi	2h 49m 55s	2h 47m 14s	2.12 mph	8.30 mph	1640 ft	1621 ft
Summary		6.017 mi	2h 49m 55s	2h 47m 14s

Devil’s Backbone

Well I finally got someone to go backpacking with me other than Emily.  The Budd’s are our friends in the ward and I convinced Ryan to go with me on Dec 18-19.  It was pretty darn cold but we stayed warm enough.  We left after work so it was already dark.  We went to Hercules Glade Wilderness area and started our hike on the Long Creek Trail, taking the second right.  Halfway to the pilots trail, we set up our tent.  The next morning, we finished the loop.  It was fun but pretty darn cold.

Click on the picture to go to the Gallery

It’s been a while, I’ve been really busy with work and Jordan has too.

We went hiking in the Swan Creek Area on the other end of the trail. Jordan was eager to try out his new GPS and to map some data. He is so excited about how it turned out that he is even making his own website about trails in Missouri.

So, after Raymond and Amy left on Saturday, Jordan and I drove to the trailhead. It was such a nice day outside in the high 70’s. We walked around the Swan Creek area on some trails to try out the new GPS. The area had just been part of a controlled burn, so on one side of the trail the forest was burned, and on the other side it wasn’t. It was pretty cool to see. We had a hard time finding the trail, so we followed pink plastic ties on the burned trees. The sky was so blue and the contrast to the burned trees was really pretty.

We found out some pretty cool stuff about the GPS and camera. Did you know that pictures can be geotaged, meaning the exact coordinates-latitude and longitude can be recorded with the picture? So, if you actually go to the gallery at the end and click the “map this” button- top right, second button, then it will show you a map of where we went (or click here).  And if you click on the happy face, then it can show you the actual picture we took at that place. How cool is that?

We saw some pretty funny things we when got back too, you know you’re around hill people when you see signs that say “Hillbilly Discount Garage”. Also, we’re trying to figure out why the police SUV in Ozark said, “purchased by a drug dealer.” Anyway, look at the pictures and how they are mapped. We’ll write more on Jordan’s new website when he gets it up and running.

Click on the picture to go to the Gallery

On October 23. Jordan and I decided to go camping right after he got home from work on a Friday night. By the time we got to the camp it was dark and we started to make dinner. We played Catch-Phrase (it is the electronic version so we could actually see the words). It was starting to get cold and we went in the tent to play. We started to watch a movie and then we smelled something skunky (literally). We stopped watching the movie and just sat there and the smell got stronger. Jordan was so worried that a skunk was going to spray the tent, but that didn’t happen.

We had to get home early the next morning because there was an Elder’s Quorum service project. So we left fast the next morning and it was so foggy. We couldn’t see the car from the tent. I tried to take a picture and the campsite, and when the flash was on you could sort of see the fog. We turned the car lights on and we got an okay picture of the campsite (it was right next to the creek, so that’s why there was fog).

It was so pretty driving back. We stopped to take a picture of the fog with the sunrise. It was amazing, the fog just ended when we went up a hill. We got home just as it was getting light and Jordan got ready for the service project.

It has been lovely weather in Missouri this week, so Jordan and I went on a walk on Monday evening. We wanted to walk to Downtown Ozark. It was suppose to be a short walk, just about 3 miles to there and back. We really like walking, but there are a couple of things lacking here for pedestrians, like sidewalks and pedestrian crossings at stoplights.

We were going to walk to a park, but there wasn’t a crossing at the light. We kept walking and found a path that was near the Finley River, so we walked on that, we made it down to the community center and kept walking on some new paths they have there. There was a trail so we decided to follow it.We thought maybe it came back to our house, but it didn’t. So we walked around and eventually got back to our house, after walking for a couple of hours and a little more than 8 miles of walking.

Sure it was fun, and Jordan’s always prepared so we brought flashlights and were okay walking in the dark. A little dog started to follow us home but didn’t follow us all the way home.

Jordan and I live even closer to the Mark Twain National Forest now that we live in our house. We’ve passed a sign for the Bar-K Wrangler site when we go to Hercules Glade.

It is less than half an hour away from our house so we decided that we would camp there on Saturday. So we drove down there and hiked around. The Swan Creek Trail actually goes through Swan Creek, so we couldn’t go to the trail. We actually drove onto Trail 533 and parked at a campsite. We walked around and just enjoyed the beautiful fall colors. We got to see some horses and some beautiful leaves. I took a lot of pictures of the creek and the little waterfall that we saw.

We walked around for a couple of hours and then came back to our campsite and made dinner. A ladybug landed on Jordan’s pants and I tried to take some pictures, but it was hard to get a good picture of it. Poor Jordan’s contact was bothering him so we decided to drive home. It was a good thing that we did because it got so cold that night that it frosted.