Lake of the Ozarks

A few years ago, Danny and I decided to let our boys pick where they would like to go for vacation...within reason...the summer going into their senior year. Jacob picked going to Lake of the Ozarks, where he wanted "a house on the water, in the middle of nowhere, and he wanted to fish for a whole week."

I found myself in a bit of a panic after we started in on the roads, and my phone switched to "SEARCHING" for service.  It had NOTHING.  I found later that if you went out to the middle to end of the dock, you had a few bars and at least could send a text out.  We also had no internet.  Dan and I discussed the feelings that came with being totally cut off, and came to the conclusion that it must be left over "sick-dad syndrome."   We've taught ourselves to not be far from our phones or out of reach for so long, in case something happened.  After the first day, I realized it was just fine to be out of reach, and actually enjoyed it by the time we left.  And--who REALLY needs internet when you are at the lake???

Our house really was in the middle of no where. It took 30 mins of winding roads and hills to get us to and from town.  I'll add that about halfway there, my motion sickness kicked in.  I never felt sick when we were going TO town, but always did going BACK to the house.

Front door

This was the view when you came out our front door.

I went to bed and woke up every morning to THIS view!

Jacob caught this guy on some fishing line, with a hook, and some cheese. He spent hours hanging it from the dock, or from the bridge. 

We had 2 hammocks at the house. T doesn't enjoy fishing as much as the rest of us, so he spent a lot of time rocking back and forth, watching. 

THIS HILL!!! Was crazy!! Going DOWN it felt like you were going off a canyon. And we had to take our trash up to a dumpster...at the top of this hill and around another decent sized hill to an intersection.   It was a quarter of a mile up and back...and let me tell you...if you ever want to feel  what it's like to be an 80 year old cardiac patient with Emphysema, just go here to the land of hills and stairs!! WOW. 

We had an amazing time. We ended up catching about 100 fish in our time there.  We also enjoyed lots of other wildlife. As we went down to one of the roads going to our house for the first time, a red fox ran into the trees. We saw lots of deer, Pelicans, Egrets, chipmunks, lots and lots of different birds I've never seen or heard before, a flock of geese with goslings that just casually swam right by us one day, a big alligator turtle with 2 little babies that would sun on a log, and swim by like we were casual neighbors,  and a cotton mouth snake who must have lived close, as we saw him several times. We also saw a pair of cardinals in the exact same spot every time we went to town. We even started looking for them, and always found them. 

The morning after we arrived, Jacob got up early to fish, and was chased down our bridge by a hummingbird. I guess he thought Jake's red hat was a tasty snack.  The next time  we went to town I picked up a cheap feeder, and was delighted to see them visit and keep pretty close.  The day we left, I went to get the feeder and stood still by it, while a hummer sipped for the last time about a foot from me. He thought I was rather annoying but they certainly were not afraid of us. 

To save on our budget, we only ate out twice. It was only suppose to be once, but we ate at a place no one was really impressed with the first time, so we decided it didn't count. ;) I had menus planned for the entire week, and we cooked our meals at the house. I found it fun before the trip to plan out and came up with a few new things to try. One being:

Smore's DIP!

Layer Hershey bars in a small pan. Cut large marshmallows in half, put on top of candy bars, covering the top. Put in the oven at 425, and cook until the marshmallows brown. Serve with graham crackers. It was good stuff!

We did just a few touristy things--I have lots of pictures, so I'll save them for another post!!