Driving Through Missouri: Johnson Shut-Ins State Park

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After breakfast at the YMCA Trout Lodge, we set out on our drive to Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. The drive is roughly 6 hours. We had a lot of recommendations from friends on things to see during our drive. We decided to add one stop on our drive down and another stop on our drive back up. Today, we decided to stop at Johnson Shut-Ins State Park based on a recommendation from our friends Jay and Marjorie.

Driving through Missouri is something else! First, it really is beautiful. Everything is green and lush, and we drove through rolling hills and up and down the Ozark "mountains." However, most of the highways are small, two-lane state highways with no mile markers or highway exits. These highways are often winding and close to trees on both sides. As a result, critters dart out on occasion. Even though the posted speed limit is 55 on these state highways, it's difficult to travel that fast. We mostly drove around 45-50mph. Cell service is spotty, and we lost service frequently. This makes it difficult to navigate!

We made it to Johnson's Shut-Ins about an hour into our six hour drive. We drove to the back of the state park where there was a big parking lot and services that include a gift shop, bathrooms, changing rooms, and lockers (they accept change only). We got changed into our suits and then set out on the short trail that starts next to the gift shop. The trail is actually a loop that goes on for about a mile and a half, but it's only about 1/3 of a mile to the shut-ins.

What are shut-ins? Good question. I had no idea, either! There were a few signs on our hike that briefly explained them. From what I gather, it's a type of rock formation that changes the flow of the river and causes it to pool and such.

The rock formations were stunning! They're small, but so interesting, and the rock pools that they form are a ton of fun to explore. The water is crystal clear, and we could see fish, frogs, tadpoles, and more! While exploring, we found two geodes, too! There are places the water is really shallow and other parts where it gets deep. There are places where the water moves slowly and other places where it's a quick-moving stream.

Before we left on our trip, I'd read about how slick the rocks could get. A website recommended water shoes. I found some on Amazon for each of us ranging in price from $6/pair to $12/pair. I'm so glad we had those! The larger rocks that are under water are very slick, especially when they have algae growing on them (I think it's algae, but I don't know!). The safest rocks to walk on were actually the pebbles. When we walked on the larger submerged rocks, we had to hold on to something nearby. Our shoes gave us a lot of grip, but they were no match for the slickest rocks.

Including our changing time and hiking time, we spent about two hours at the shut-ins. We honestly could have stayed longer, but we wanted to get a move on and stay ahead of some storms rolling into Arkansas. The rest of our drive was uneventful. When we crossed the state border into northeastern Arkansas, the landscape changed. It went from forested, mountain-like driving to an extremely flat landscape. I'm not going to lie. The first part of our drive through Arkansas was pretty boring! However, the highways were so nice! We drove on a federal, four lane, divided highway with mile markers and exits. There were no people standing in the road or crossing the street to get their mail. We could drive at the posted 75mph speed limit.

In no time, we arrived in Little Rock. We ordered online for a takeout dinner from The Root Cafe. Oof, the traffic in Little Rock is horrendous. Literally, awful. We looked up the population of Little Rock and were shocked that it's smaller than Des Moines. How could a city smaller than Des Moines have such terrible traffic??? Google constantly rerouted us onto frontage roads so we could drive 40mph instead of the 25mph speeds on the highway.

After Little Rock, the landscape changed again. It returned to being forested and mountainous. We arrived in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The town is an interesting mix of new store developments, old historic areas, run-down old businesses, and suburban homes. We wound our way through a suburb and up an unpaved road to get our cabin by Lake Hamilton. The area is lovely and feels remote even though it's so close to town. The owner, Skip Houston, was very friendly and welcomed us to our cabin and gave us a lot of information about the area at Hot Springs National Park. He also told us about a bald eagle's nest right outside our cabin door. Sure enough, if you walk out of our cabin and look up, there is an enormous (6 foot wide) eagle's nest on the treetop!

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Photos

Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park
Middle Brook, Missouri

Exploring Johnson's Shut-Ins
The large, wet rocks were slick!

Exploring Johnson's Shut-Ins
They found fish, frogs, and tadpoles!

I Found a Geode!
At Johnson's Shut-Ins

Swimming at Johnson's Shut-Ins
The water by the rock formations tended to be very shallow, but when we ventured farther out, it was deep enough to swim!

Joanna Found a Geode!
At Johnson's Shut-Ins

Water Shoes
Best $6 purchase!

Bald Eagle's Nest
Right outside our cabin at Hot Springs, Arkansas