Spring Cave, Ozark

It's getting nippy here in southern Missouri. Not as bad as the Rockies which is now below freezing, but the morning is at 40F. It's now 4PM and the breeze is chilly enough for long sleeves and pants. The day is obviously getting short too. It's the middle of October and the sun sets at 6PM and it doesn't rise again till after 7 AM here in southern Missouri. It's still warm enough in the noon time though. 

Finding the campsite here in Indian Trail Preservation Area was a pain. These free campsites don't have a map and GPS coordinates are very approximate, on a good day. Sometimes the info on freecampsites.net is outdated and the sites don't exist. That's what happened in White River Terrace and I had to drive another 40 miles to Indian Trails. At least I had a back up plan.

Here in Indian Trails, the sites are dispersed over huge area and you have to do lots of poking to find a decent spot. I took the second one by the road about 2 miles past the GPS point. It's actually on the middle triangle at a fork. It is a very large triange, about an acre, but I managed to set up the tent near the road and cars coming coming and going shine headlights directly on my tent. Luckily not too many cars come and go at night. There was a much better and secluded site about 2 miles further up behind the gun range. I stumbled on it when the dumb Tesla navigation took me through there to get to Devil's Well, the trailhead for Spring Cave Trail, this morning. The road soon became impassible and I had to turn around, come back to the came and then take the paved highway to Salem. I burned precious 5 miles in the process on top of the 60 miles that I burned needlessly scrambling to find the campground yesterday. Now I only have 70 miles left for tonight and then make it back to Rolla for recharging. The life in EV off the beaten path sucks. 

So I gave up on Round Spring and Allis Spring which are further south and therefore required more EV range. But I still managed to make it to Spring Cave. The path to/from it is a standard issue trail through the woods. The end point, however, was well worth the uneventful 4.6 mile hike. The emerald blue water springs from the cave and adds volume to Current river. Kayaking on Current river into these caves apparently is a popular activity in the Scenic Riverways. Not sure if I'll have time for it though. I'll be driving over 200 miles on 10/19 through the riverways and that's not going to leave much room for anything other than driving and sightseeing.

I'm changing my plan. I was going to come back to the camp after Onondaga State Park and Meramec Springs Park tomorrow. But hotels in Rolla seems to be cheap enough and there is no sense making another 80 mile trip to recharge the car on 10/19. And my day off on 10/18 needs Internet connection that doesn't exist here in Indian Spring campsite. So, I'll pack up tomorrow morning and check into a hotel in Rolla after Onondaga Cave. I'll take day off after that, and then I'll be off to the Scenic Riverways drive to Van Buren and then to Miner for recharing. From there, I'll head to Big Bend NP in TX.