Hiking the Ozarks

For our spring break we visited my Aunt and friend in Cabool, Mo. They live on a farm where they raise lambs and cattle. They have a number of other assorted animals - cats, dogs, chickens, guinea hens, etc. It is always nice and relaxing to visit them. It is a nice environment with good food and company.

During our time on the farm we decided to get in another 10 mile hike. There are plenty of country roads around to check out. My Aunt drew us a map of a set of roads to follow that should get us our 10 miles. It seemed easy enough to follow.

On this trail Ingemar joined us, as did Kato one of the Great Pyrenees. The hike started off with a bang when Kato decided to play chicken with the car coming up the road. The folks around here know Kato, so no harm done. We hiked passed a road off to the left, but didn't see a roadsign at the cross, so continued on. The weather was very nice. It was sunny and in the 70's. It was actually hot in the direct son, and we enjoyed the spots of shade along the way.

We hiked about 3 miles when we came to a paved road. This didn't seem right, but we headed along it for a bit until we met traffic. Kato stood out in the middle of the road and wouldn't budge. The two cars had to go around. We thought uh, oh, these cars don't know his anctics. Then two motorcycles rode by (we held onto him). We called the house and asked if they could come pick him up. He was breathing very hard, and would not drink any water. During our wait for Kato's ride we took the time to look around. We were on top of a nice hill and had a great view.

Kato's ride arrived. After a bit of doing, we got Kato into the back of the truck. We discovered that we were on highway U. Oops. The road we passed is the one that we should have taken. We decided to hike back since hiking on a 2 lane highway did not seem fun.

We hiked back to the correct road, and took it. Of course we found the street sign, it was on the opposite side of the road. We hear they like to hide their signs here. "If you don't know where you are going, you shouldn't be here." We found the other roads as well, and made it back to the farm. The total milage was 9.7 miles, and with the mile that the boys hiked around the farm before we started, we called it 10.

I had a great time on this hike with the whole family. I got to sepend time with each member talking about things. Nothing in particular, just talking. It took us about 3.5 hours total, and there was some "hurting" felt, but I think that everyone had a nice time.