Big Lake State Park, Mound City, MO - Part 1

Friday we were up at 5:15 AM and left at 6:00. We only had about 60 miles to go, but as I mentioned at the end of the previous post, Big Lake State Park near Mound City, MO has been closed due to flood damage and they're re-opening today. It is first-come, first-served, plus it's Memorial Day weekend. We wanted to make sure we got here early enough to get a site.

Well, when we arrived (about 7:15), the barricade at the entrance was still up and there was a sign that said they would be opening at Noon. There was already one set of folks ahead of us and there was no place to park the motorhome on the little narrow road. We unhitched the Jeep and left it at the barrricade, and parked the motorhome across the street in the driveway of a vacant house. A little later they let us into a big parking lot and started lining us up in the order we had arrived (a few others were getting here by now). I got the motorhome and lined it up behind the Jeep. We were able to walk into the campground and pick what site we wanted, so when they opened it up, we would be able to go straight to our site. We were initially second in line, but after awhile the folks in front of us decided to abandon the wait and left. That left us first in line.

Big Lake is another of those ox-bow lakes formed years ago when the Missouri River took a short cut across a big bend and left this lake isolated. It isn't very wide (about wide as the river), but is 3 or 4 miles long. We didn't realize the damage the flood had caused, I was thinking some minor damage recently. It didn't take us long to figure out that the flood was a major one that occurred in 2011 and the park has been closed three years. They've been working since then to repair all the damage. There is no grass in the campground - it's all black dirt (silt) that has been seeded with straw on top. A lot of the trees were killed and have been taken out.

Most of the campsite driveways are gravel, but there are four handicapped ones that are paved and have concrete around the picnic table area. They weren't designated, and since this was the first day of the re-open, the lady said any and all sites were first-come, first-served - including the handicapped ones. Well, shoot - we picked out one of those sites and since we were first in line, we got it with no problem. LaVerne likes it because she doesn't have to worry about getting her shoes muddy. It faces the lake across the street, so we have a good view.

The flood that wiped this place out must have been a sight to see. All the trees have water line marks that show the level the water got to. This place was really underwater for awhile!!

All up and down the road you can see the water marks on the houses, higher on some than others depending on the lay of the land.

This post is just for this campground and about the flood and damage. What are the odds?? This campground has been closed for three years, and on a crowded holiday weekend when we needed a campsite, they re-opened and we just happened to hear about it. We're thanking God a bunch!

I will do another post later about what we did here.