Day 8- Lake of the Ozarks, MO

Woops missed the alarm this morning…got off a little late. Oh well. We got breakfast, filled up with gas and filled the tires with air then we were on our way to Lake of the Ozarks. While driving through Missouri, we passed a firework shop (didn’t know we would pass like 500 more). Katie and Jess made the decision to turn around (extending the trip approx 20 mi)….it was so worth it though, because Jess spun the prize wheel, and won $200 worth of fireworks!!!! This was AWESOME!!!!! Most fun shopping spree we have ever been on!!!!!

With our minivan stuffed full of fireworks, we cruised on to Kansas City where stopped for lunch at the Kansas City Historic Market. It is a farmers Market on Sundays….so nice. They had all sorts of great food (we settled on Ethiopian), fresh fruit, spices etc. Lauren accomplished her goal of finding Boba Tea in the Midwest. We have a new ritual at each stop we make….we ask locals where they think we are from. The meat and cheese man thought we were from Iowa! Haha.

After our stop in KC, we kept truckin’ to the Ozarks. We originally were going to camp at the State Park, but we took a wrong turn and saw The Dam Bait Shop Fishin’ and Campin’…so we thought, why not? This camp ground was rugged! I believe our exact quote was, “Sh** just got real, this is a whole new level.” We reserved a site and immediately went on a mission to find a spot to swim. Our camp site was on the river side of the Bengall Dam…so we went to the lake side. After about 2 hrs of asking people about swimming spots, a walmart trip to get inflatables, going to the “public beach” which we decided against due to warning signs (despite the Ecoli warnings, parents were still allowing their small children to swim)…we still had no place to swim. Then we stumbled upon Tom Sawyer Lake Tours…this old man with no shirt said, “ya’ll can jump off the pier if ya want”...Hell yeah!

The lake was refreshing, a little dirty…but worth it. After the dip we headed across the street to our camp ground. We got our site...free for all, and the lady hooked us up with some fishin’ poles and worms, and we went down to the river. With in 7 seconds of dropping a line in the water we caught a Blue Gill…then it got away. Woops. Next try we caught a Stripped Bass!! Got it off the line, killed it, gutted it, cooked it, and ate it. Not going to go into how lame and squealy we were during this process...the man next to us (also with no shirt) surely thought we were lame California girls. 

  

The bugs were SO intense by the river!! Head lamps were not possible to use unless you didn’t mind your face being dive bombed by bugs (swallowed at least 10 each). Plus, the cicadas are out this year….fun for a minute…then a little crazy. They make so much noise and are so big (also dive bombing)! We got in that tent asap to get away from bugs and went to sleep.