It was a week before Christmas…

And all through our house, both of us creatures were stirring… getting ready to travel on to Lincoln, Nebraska for Christmas with family. Before leaving the beautiful NEWMAR service center, we topped off our water tank. The “camp sites” at the service center have the water shut off for the winter, but we were told we could fill up at the main building. It wasn’t too crowded on Sunday morning…

Springfield, Missouri

First stop on the trip was Springfield – Abe Lincoln territory. Like most everything else in these COVID times, the buildings were closed, but we could stroll between many historic buildings.

This was the Lincoln house for many years. When he moved here, it was a single story building. I understand he added the second floor and the extension on the rear.

It’s amazing to think this is the same door Lincoln came home to every evening.

There are many other buildings in that block, preserved as a National Park… and obviously closed now. Sigh.

Clarksville, Missouri

From Springfield we moved to Clarksville. All I knew of Clarksville was that the Monkees took the last train there many decades ago… or maybe that was another Clarksville. This one hasn’t had much upkeep since that last train pulled in.

Ok, this was one of the worst structures, but it was interesting to see the format of an old gas station.

There were some nice period homes…

Tievoli Hills Resort

A few miles outside of Clarksville is this nice resort, which I think they spelled incorrectly. But who am I to say?? They have condos and lodge rooms and also RV sites. Very spacious, and lots of room to walk and explore.

Owensville, MO

Our GPS sent us the back way to our next destination… up narrow dirt roads until it was obvious this route wouldn’t work. We unhooked the Suburban, backed up to a fork in the road, and retraced our path a ways. It was pretty obvious the proper entrance was the other side of the lakes, and we made that trip just fine.

Lost Valley Lake Resort

Once we arrived at the actual entrance, we checked into this HUGE resort. We had thought the last place was big… but this place is far lager! LVL encompasses over 350 acres – Lodge rooms, cabins, villas, and RV sites. Lots of all these! Our site was #787… I’m not sure they start counting at 1, but there are a lot. I think there were 3 sites that had people staying in them now! Some of the lodge rooms were occupied, but it felt like we had this place pretty much to ourselves. The outdoor pools and a few buildings were closed, but there were still many meeting rooms and buildings available, and the indoor pool building was open. After hiking all over the park the hot tub felt pretty good!