Camping (sort of) at the Lake of the Ozarks

---

This will be a relatively short one as we recently enjoyed a weekend of ‘Fi-Camping’ (read: Staying in a log cabin) in the Missouri bushland. It was a good catch up with the Jamieson’s, and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…..



The US military does a fantastic job of supporting its service men and women through the provision of morale and welfare based services. One such service is a camp ground and recreational area at the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri. The Lake of the Ozarks is actually a man-made lake which serves as a reservoir and source of water for power generation. At the time of its creation it was the largest man-made lake in the world and remains the largest in the US. To provide a little perspective, it has more coastline than the state of California.



The family decided to take advantage of the facilities for a weekend when a 3-bedroom log cabin became available at short notice. A quick phone call to the Jamieson’s, and we had a plan to catch up with them for the weekend as the lake is only about an hour’s drive north of where they live. We set out early on a Friday afternoon and arrived to find a fantastic log cabin complete with porch swing, deck, fire pit and fantastic lake views waiting for us. The kids absolutely loved the loft bedroom which they called ‘dibbs’ on as soon as we walked into the place!



Our boys and Eloise continued right where they had left off in Canberra. Nicholas and Eloise really seemed to enjoy each other’s company, and I think Patrick really liked being the big kid of the group. We had a small playground across the road from the cabin and the kids enjoyed the freedom of being able to play freely without the need to drag the adults along! Importantly though, we were able to properly meet the new addition to the Jamieson family, 3 month old man-child Billy who will probably weigh more than me by the end of next week! The kids loved toasting marshmallows on the stick, although we'd put them on the stick for the boys and Nicky would just eat them straight off the stick instead of cooking them (he didn't like them sticky apparently. Wouldn't eat them out of the bag though, had to be put on the stick first!!)





I won’t regale everyone with stories of the weekend as ultimately we really didn’t do too much. We sat around the camp fire enjoying good beer and company, and when the beer ran out, good rum (probably a few too many). We played cards, chatted, caught up and reflected on life in the US. We were treated to excellent facilities, great company and one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in a long time. It is a fantastic place to visit, and a real shame that the Australian military has not invested in too many facilities similar to this one.

---

Photos

The Log Cabin
Three Bedrooms, fully self contained - all for $40 a night!

Amazing Sunset
Here's Jamo prepping the fire with an amazing sunset across the lake. There's no filters or anything used in this photo and I included this to show just how amazing it was - probably the best I have ever seen!

Campfire Time
Almost Marshmallow time!

Man Time!
Getting our man on - carried the bloody thing up from the lake....did burn all night though!

Sunset the Second Night
Not as spectacular, but great photo (thanks Ank!)