Tuesday 4-16-24 Bennett Spring State Park & Motorcycle Ride

 

Bennett Spring State Park

We had another windy day. We woke up to the temperature in the low 60's and got to 79 degrees. 

I woke up about 7:15 and made mini waffles for breakfast. Then we got ready to go. We spent a couple of nights at Pomme de Terre State Park and now it's time to move on. Our next destination is 40 miles down the road to another state park called Bennett Spring State Park.

As we were leaving the park we swung by the dump station to dump our tanks and fill up our water tank. We were on the road by 8:30. 

The roads to Bennett Spring State Park were two lanes. As we were driving was saw a bald eagle hunting for breakfast.

 We arrived at the park at 10:00, this was early for us. We drove around the campground to find a site we liked. We parked the Minnie in the site then Larry went online and made reservations. The site we found was available for the next three nights. While he was on the computer he made reservations for the weekend at Lake of the Ozark State Park. If you make a reservations for a site the day you arrive you don't pay the $6.50 reservation fee. We didn't have to pay the reservation fee for Bennett Spring but we did for Lake of the Pines.

Bennett Spring is a large park with a underground stream that releases over 100 million gallons of clear water a day.  It has a dining lodge, cabins, 5 campgrounds, big park store and hiking trails. One of the five campgrounds has full hook-ups sites, the others have power only and basic no power. The park store has everything you need for fishing, t-shirts, hats, souvenirs, snacks and more. You can buy your fishing license at the store and sign up to take a fly fishing course. In order to fish in the spring you need to buy a fishing license and have it visible at all times. Most of the fishermen put the licenses on their hats.

Once we setup the Minnie for three nights we relaxed. After lunch we took the motorcycle off it's carrier. Then we went on a bike ride through the park. We drove down to the spring and checked out the trailheads. We'll have to ride the bike to the trailheads, it's about a mile to the closest one. We parked the Minnie by the tunnel trailhead and checked it out. When we got back to the parking lot we saw a couple getting ready for a hike. They were in the process of putting their baby on her back in a backpack for kids. The tunnel trailhead has two trails, one that goes to the tunnel, which is 7.5 miles round trip and the other one is about 3 miles. They said they were doing the shorter trail. We got back on the bike and parked it at the cabins by the spring. Then we walked around the area. As we walked we saw a lot of fishermen and women fishing in the spring. They were all fly fishing. There are beautiful cabins to rent there. If you fish you can rent one and just walk over to the spring and fish. When you get tried you can go back to the cabin and rest. This park was built by the CCC and it has a lot of nice structures still standing. The stone building at the spring was built by the CCC in 1934 and is still being used to calculate how much water the spring produces. We got back on the bike and went to the park store. We were surprised how big it was. While there Larry bought me a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a blue truck. I'll have to wait until I get home to assemble it because we have no room. As we were checking out there were some baked goodies, we bought a apple cinnamon muffin. The lady, who checked us out was very friendly and had worked at the store for 25 years. She said the store was very small at the beginning. Now she can get lost in it. It was a pleasure to talk to her because she was always smiling. Then we went back to our site. Once back we loaded the bike back on the carrier and strapped it down and covered it. Larry only out a couple of straps on the cover just so the wind won't blow it off. We had a great ride through the park.

Stone building built by the CCC 1934

 

Fishing on one of the dikes

 

Two women enjoying fishing at Bennett Spring

Bennett Spring 

 

One of the cabins

 

New jigsaw puzzle

 

After putting the bike up we went inside and relaxed. I did the Daily Solitaire Challenge and the event. Today the event was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 10 games (5 Pyramid and 5 Tri Peaks). It took me 36 minutes and 55 seconds, which put me in 10th place in my group. Larry read.

Then I walked around for a half hour. I got hot so I stopped my walk until a little later when it cooled off. 

 For dinner I made tacos. After dinner I walked around for an hour. As I was walking I talked to our neighbors, they were from Texas. When I got back I rested. About 9:00 I went outside to finish my steps. I ended up doing 16,000 steps, which kept me in 1st place in my group.

I finished reading The Blood of my Mother. It was a great book. It was about how a lady and her family surviving the rough frontier in the 1800's before and after Texas became a state. Many of the places mentioned were in the Milam county area of Texas not far from where we live.

 

Beautiful sunset at Bennett Spring