Taum Sauk Mountain State Park
Spring Break Road Trip 2022 | Day 9 | Hiking in Taum Sauk Mountain State Park | Visiting the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City | Jackson, TN to Omaha, NE | March 2022
When we woke up this morning, we didn’t know that today would be the last day of vacation. We had planned on camping at least one more night in the Ozarks of Missouri and doing some more hiking…but the weather had other plans. The day before had been hot — even humid, like you’d expect before a thunderstorm. But all that heat was gone, chased away by the cold front.
We started our day with donuts from Jackson Donuts, then got on the road. We started by going North — we had specifically planned our route so that we’d also drive through Kentucky and Illinois, so we could say we’ve visited two more states for a total of 11 so far this year. We had looked a little for things to do along the way, but it was cold and rainy so we mostly stuck to driving. We made one brief stop in Kentucky at Fort Jefferson Hill Park which overlooked the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, but our walk was cut short because of the cold and sharp winds.
While driving US-51 North out of Wickliffe, KY into Cairo, IL, we were blown away by the amount of water there was along the road. We weren’t sure if this was flooding or if it was normally this high, but either way it was a substantial amount. We had wanted to stop at a park at the Southernmost point of Illinois, but after we crossed the bridge we realized that entire area was under water, and we had no choice but to continue driving North through Cairo.
We crossed into Missouri at Cape Girardeau, then took MO-72 West into the Ozarks. Our main focus for today was to reach the highest point in Missouri, Taum Sauk Mountain. Thankfully the rain had stopped, but the temperature on our car’s thermometer was concerningly low…which led me to look up how low the temps would get that night, and we started second guessing our idea to camp that night. We may have started this trip with camping in cold temps, but we had gotten far too used to the warmer weather we’d enjoyed since then, and tonight would be even colder than our first night.
But the cold wouldn’t keep us from stopping to enjoy Taum Sauk Mountain State Park! We drove up to the main parking lot, bundled up with our coats, hats, and gloves, and set off on the easy trail to the highest point. We did our usual take pictures/find a letterbox/sign the logbook routine, then Curtis talked us into continuing our hike to find some waterfalls, specifically Mina Sauk Falls, the highest in the state. Seeing as there had been plenty of rain lately, evident by the amount of large puddles on the trail, we hoped to find very full waterfalls.
We started off confidently down the trail, which became more difficult after the high point. There were plenty of puddles and on the sloped sections there would be water flowing down the trail. We pressed on, but started to worry about Charlotte being too cold from walking in the water. She didn’t seem to mind and courageously led the way down the trail. When we came to a wider stream crossing, we looked upstream and noted an easier spot to cross, so we turned to backtrack a little to reach that spot, but Charlotte took this as us turning around and she was all too excited to go back instead of crossing and continuing onward. She turned around with such enthusiasm, we couldn’t bear to tell her we weren’t intending on turning around here…so we let her lead us back up the trail, to the easier trail, and back to the car. Oh well, I’m sure the waterfalls were cool, but our priorities clearly lie with keeping our dog happy since she already puts up with so much!
Once back at the car, we finally faced the facts: We were already cold, and it was going to get even colder tonight. We were also only 8 hours away from home, and it was still early afternoon. And while we had researched and found several things to do and had an idea of where to camp that night, none of these plans sounded exciting enough to make us want to put up with a cold night of camping. And so we made the decision to call it a trip and drive home. We had been blessed with a whole week of nicer weather, which is more than what you can ask for in this part of the country in the spring, so going home a day early was hardly something to be disappointed about. (Also, now that we’re over a month past returning from this trip, I’m pretty sure this week was the longest stretch of nice weather we’ve seen this entire spring…so honestly our timing couldn’t have been better!)
And so we began our drive back home, with Curtis starting an interesting new audiobook to keep us entertained. We made one last stop for the trip in Jefferson City, Missouri, to see the Missouri state capitol building, and very much enjoyed our stroll around admiring monuments for the Lewis and Clark expedition, President Thomas Jefferson, and the views overlooking the Missouri River. We grabbed Culvers and then finished our drive back to Omaha, noting that there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground that had fallen recently.
