Saturday Explorers

Yesterday Kyle and I enjoyed a mini-vacation with our friends Ryan and Diana.  Destination: Camdenton, MO!  We had a big day of hiking and shopping planned so I started off my morning by eating a whole wheat bagel with organic cream cheese, an orange, and a cheese glass of cranberry juice.  The perfect fuel for lots of hiking.

We arrived at Ha Ha Tonka State Park around 9:30 am and started off by touring the castle ruins.  Yes, castle ruins in the middle of Missouri!

Then we hiked the Quarry Trail.  It was a 1.75 mile long trail that I have done once before.  I love this trail because it has moderate hills, but nothing that makes it hard to breath!  There are also glades on this trail.  For those of you (like me) who don't know what a glade is, it's a field in the middle of a forest.  The glades on this trail remind me of Ireland.  BEAUTIFUL!  They were very rocky which was perfect for Ryan who likes to turn over rocks and see what animals he can find.  He uncovered a few ground skinks, a little snake, lots of worms, and a scorpion.  It wasn't as fierce as I had thought it would be, but I still didn't get too close!

After the hike we headed down to the spring and had lunch- almond butter on whole wheat, an apple, and pomegranate fruit strip.  No pictures- I was to busy watching great blue herons fly by!  Here's the view walking to the spring.

We found many animals on the trail including these turtles on a log!

Then this snake on the side of the trail.  Normally, I would freak out about a snake this big, but Ryan, the herpetology expert, assured me this was a nonvenomous water snake.  A biter, but nonvenomous.

When we had finished our hike to the spring, we headed to the outlet mall.  Unfortunately, there weren't any great deals.  It's not really an outlet when the clothes are only 20% off full price!  So we headed to Columbia and I was starving.  Ryan and Diana had recommended a restaurant in Columbia called Casablanca.  It's a family-run Mediterranean restaurant.  I loved the decor and loved the food even more!  I ordered the gyro plate with fries.  Holy scrumptiousness!   I had a serious food-baby after drinking tons of water and eating this whole plate of food.  

Casablanca was the last stop on our day of exploration.  I want to know, did you do any exploring this weekend?