Friday 3-27-26 Cold Windy Day, Hiking & Relaxing

 

Entrance to the Natural Falls

We had a cold windy day. The morning temperature was 50 degrees with a north wind. The high was 55. It was windy and overcast all day. What weird weather, after two days of temperatures near 90 now todays high was 55 degrees. I'm not complaining we have clothes for the cold in the Minnie.

I woke up at 7:00 am and got dressed. Then I baked some Rhodes cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The oven heated up the Minnie. After breakfast I walked over to the restroom. When I got back I told Larry it was cold so we decided to hang around the Minnie all morning. We relaxed with a book.

Breakfast

For lunch we finished up the pizza we got at Casey's. Then we got ready to go on a hike. I put my fanny pack together with water. We got our poles. We started our hike from the back of a site across from us. The trail was called Fox Den Trail (1.5 mile trail) we hiked a mile of it. It was very challenging we hiked down to the creek, crossed over the creek via rocks and up the hill on the other side. The climb down and up was very challenging. The trail was narrow and had a lot of loose rocks and it was steep. As we hiked we saw some caves in the rock made by the creek. I think the caves are the fox denning area. The creek had a little water in it. We saw the dam and it had a beautiful waterfall. I think it was the most difficult trail we hiked so far on the trip. We wore our jacket but the trail did warm us up. We did a loop, which brought us back to our campsite. We sat at our picnic table to rest before continuing our hike. 

Dam and Ozark spring

The fox den in the rocks

After our rest we hiked over to the day area, where the falls and other trails are located. We walked through the parking lot to the entrance of Dripping Springs Trail. It was a beautiful entrance. The trail to the falls was a half mile along Ozark springs. The walkway was very easy to walk to the overlook of the 77' Ozark Spring (waterfall). From there we took the 47 steps to the base of the falls. The fall was very pretty. While walking on the walkway we saw some beautiful ferns, mosses, liverworts and other plants. It was a beautiful walk/hike. After admiring the falls we walked back to the Minnie. 

Expansion bridge 110' high on the other side of the falls walkway

Standing at the falls at the bottom

Ozark Spring Falls

By the end of the hike we had done about 2 miles and hiked for an hour and a half. We had a great hike. 

I played my Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street Mini of 15 games. It took me 30 minutes and 39 seconds, which put me in 13th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

When I wasn't playing games, hiking and walking I continued reading Project Hail Mary. It's a great book and very entertaining. 

Larry finished his book he started yesterday and started a new one.

 

Relaxing with a book and having fun

For dinner we had chili. After dinner I walked around the campground on the Pine Ridge Trail, which is a healthy .75 mile pave trail. I did this trail twice. By the end of my walk I had done 2 miles. I ended up doing 12,000 steps, which is my daily goal for steps.

We had an awesome day.