Tuesday, 29 August – Missouri, Bass River Resort, Steelville

This KOA at Granite City, IL is not ideally located if you are looking for a nice relaxing holiday, too much traffic noise, although it suits us for an overnighter.  The staff and the neighbours were nice!

We get on the road about quarter to ten, its sunny and a balmy 24C.  Fridge is working fine on propane - yay!! We head back over the same route as yesterday, HWY 277 circling to the west of St Louis then new territory as we head west on the I44 which is also Route 66 in some places.  Nice drive, it got a bit misty but it soon cleared.

 

Then we had to make a decision – the two GPS’s said to take a back road from Bourbon, south to Bass River but the IPad said to go further along I44, then take a south on MO 19 at Cuba to Steelville.  The elapsed time was going to be the same but the back country route was less miles so we opted for the ‘scenic’ route!  Bad mistake!!  We got to within a bulls roar (7 miles) of the camp then the road petered out to gravel.  There was absolutely no traffic, no people - in fact we stopped in the middle of the T intersection for about 5 minutes, while I took photos and we had a board meeting about what to do.  

This is decision time, road is no long paved!

This is where the GPS wants us to go, seriously!!  She knows we don't do gravel!

Gravel if we go left too!!

We hate turning back but common sense prevailed – skinny, overgrown, unknown, gravel road, no cell cover, no passing traffic and the half dozen warning signs we had passed saying ‘road impassable in high water’ with depth gauges marking up to 3 feet!  Of course, we are thinking Harvey and Houston’s 50 inches of water… all which could be heading this way!  So we do turn back and 45 minutes later when we got to the camp and the walkabout is all forgotten.  

It’s lovely and there’s hardly anyone here, we have the pick of sites so choose one resaonably close to the office so we can get WIFI, as there is no cell coverage.  This camp was voted of the top ten in Missouri.  We are in the Ozarks - a range of low mountains, plateaus and lots and lots of water.  The Ozarks cover a good chunk of southern Missouri and overflow into Arkansas and Oklahoma. We are definitely in river country and this camp is one of many offering canoeing, rafting, kayaking and tubing adventures down the rivers, plus horse riding.  There’s a pool and they even have freshly made pizza with delivery to your site should you wish!

View of the motorhome from the Courtois River, the local 'floating' river

View of the motorhome from the horse corral