Busiek day out

Boys day out as Gary and I visited Busiek State Forest for a 4 mile walk then we journeyed onto Table Rock dam, finishing up back in Springfield in Lowe's store.

Busiek is a 2,500 acre forest near Springfield with a number of primitive camp pitches along the Woods Fork creek. We decided to do a circular 4 mile forest walk despite the heat and humidity. The trail does climb a little , not as the write up states - a very steep hill - and due to the trees the views are limited. There is a cemetery in the woods which contain a number of gravestones dating back to the civil war but ones I saw were for people who had lived in the early 20th Century. The cemetery is signed as the Carter cemetery (founded 1891) and a number of gravestones reflect this, but there are other names as well. Somebody must care for a couple of graves as there was flowers on some, whilst it is woods now there must have been a traditional Ozark settlement nearby.

Googling I found that there are a couple of sites, one that lists all the graves.

Moved onto view Table Rock dam and the local trout fishery sited at its base. One thing we noted was the huge spillway next to the dam. From the Internet the spillway was built to supplement the dam's own spillway as and when required. Apparently from new data the engineers considered that in a worst case scenario the lake could rise 10 feet higher than previously thought, hence the need for further works. The dam itself was built between 1954 and 1958 and consists of 4,821 feet earthen embankment together with 1,602 feet concrete section. The new spillway was completed in 2004.

Upstream of the dam is Table Rock Lake; downstream the white river feeds into Lake Taneycomo. The trout hatchery lies downstream of the dam and the cold waters from the dam are ideal conditions for hatching and growing trout. When we visited there was a thick blanket of mist over the river bed descending just 5 steps from the top of the river bank to the waters edge, one could feel the coolness.

On the way out of the park we did a quick drive through the camping site, but mostly set up for the trailer vans and not primitive sites. Time for another ice cream, this time in a mock 50's parlour.

Gary decided we would call in Lowe's, almost a B&Q equivalent. We has at least a half hour discussion with one of the employees over the main differences between the American 110v system and our own 240v system. Most entertaining and the guy was very interested in all the differences.