Our family vacationed in southeast Missouri this past week. What a gift to have 26 people spend a week together and actually enjoy each others company. Pictured below the crew is making one last Walmart stop before heading into Ozark country. 
On our way down we stayed in St Loius at a motel. Our first unexpected memory came around 2 am Sunday morning when the fire alarm went off and fire trucks came with their lights flashing. Everyone in the motel had to hurry down the stair flights and outdoors with alarms wailing and strobe lights flashing. Of course it was a false alarm.
We rented all the cabins in Shut-Ins State Park. The park is named after the large rocks in the river called "Shut-Ins". We swam in the river among the rocks. The second day we went down the river quite a ways where it got deep and the big boys jumped off the cliffs of rocks.
About mid week we unloaded the motorcycles and 4-wheelers in a small town and rode the sand bars and shallow water in another river. The only problem was sometimes the water didn't stay shallow. I drove in a deep spot with a couple of grandkids. After getting the grandkids to shallow water the boys helped me dump the water out of the exhaust. Another of my unexpected memories is them reminding me I used to be hard on them for driving in too deep of water in the Des Moines River when they were teenagers.
On the way home a motorist was stranded just off of Interstate 55. So Jan and I turned around and gave him a jump start.
Soon after we started for home Mark's pickup started acting up. We later found out he had gotten diesel fuel with water in it. Kurt pulled him with a toe rope for over a hundred miles including through St Loius. We met our helper Alex in Hannibal, Missouri who came up from home with a trailer and we hauled it the rest of the way.
As we were getting closer to home I heard Mike and Kurt talking on the 2-way about whether or not they had enough diesel to make it home. Well as you can see Mike ran out about 15-20 minutes from home. Fortunately I had highway diesel in the back of my pickup and soon had Mike heading north again.
This was arriving home around 8 pm. We picked up carryout pizza in Eddyville and ate together in the office so families could tuck their kids in bed as soon as they got home. What a privilege to spend a relaxing week making memories with people you care about. Thank you family.
On our way down we stayed in St Loius at a motel. Our first unexpected memory came around 2 am Sunday morning when the fire alarm went off and fire trucks came with their lights flashing. Everyone in the motel had to hurry down the stair flights and outdoors with alarms wailing and strobe lights flashing. Of course it was a false alarm.
We rented all the cabins in Shut-Ins State Park. The park is named after the large rocks in the river called "Shut-Ins". We swam in the river among the rocks. The second day we went down the river quite a ways where it got deep and the big boys jumped off the cliffs of rocks.
About mid week we unloaded the motorcycles and 4-wheelers in a small town and rode the sand bars and shallow water in another river. The only problem was sometimes the water didn't stay shallow. I drove in a deep spot with a couple of grandkids. After getting the grandkids to shallow water the boys helped me dump the water out of the exhaust. Another of my unexpected memories is them reminding me I used to be hard on them for driving in too deep of water in the Des Moines River when they were teenagers.
The men all took turns cooking. Of course the girls were never too far away if they needed advice.
On the way home a motorist was stranded just off of Interstate 55. So Jan and I turned around and gave him a jump start.
Soon after we started for home Mark's pickup started acting up. We later found out he had gotten diesel fuel with water in it. Kurt pulled him with a toe rope for over a hundred miles including through St Loius. We met our helper Alex in Hannibal, Missouri who came up from home with a trailer and we hauled it the rest of the way.
As we were getting closer to home I heard Mike and Kurt talking on the 2-way about whether or not they had enough diesel to make it home. Well as you can see Mike ran out about 15-20 minutes from home. Fortunately I had highway diesel in the back of my pickup and soon had Mike heading north again.
This was arriving home around 8 pm. We picked up carryout pizza in Eddyville and ate together in the office so families could tuck their kids in bed as soon as they got home. What a privilege to spend a relaxing week making memories with people you care about. Thank you family.
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