state park. My family has been down there since I'm thinking the early 1920s. A beautiful area, chock full of wild life, crazy but neat neighbors (my immediate ones that brought some land from me live in a couple of old school buses (they are a couple of hippies into all kinds of living off the land/food/etc.). They are neat neighbors but most of them are (good neighbors). A couple are rednecks (pardon my use of this word) but heck, they are related to me from my Dad's side, go figure. The great aunt (their maw) used to run a bar down there in the boonies and wore a 6-shooter on her waist.
It is pretty country. Unfortunately (and this is my opinion), the canoes on the river have (during the summer in particular) overwhelmed everything else on the river. I remember one time that I was curious about how many canoes they were putting into the water there (on the Niangua), and I counted over 600 canoes being put in. Way too much if you ask me. Scares a lot of the wildlife away from the river.
That's an unfortunate thing that happens to these pristine areas...the economic demands outweigh the natural resources of the area, but the area needs the money ... there are few jobs, especially since this area is about 50 miles from Springfield MO and about 50 miles from the Lake of the Ozarks (the Niangua flows into the Lake). The area has lots of retirees around, I guess that they think that the cost of living is low, and I suppose that it could considered that, but then getting services done? Eh, kind of hard to get people up there in that area to work.
Sorry I dragged on and on...take care and be safe!
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