It was interstate driving all the way from Kansas City to Columbia Missouri. Just 150 miles. We stopped in Columbia to visit our son Brian who so happen to be in the area on business.
Columbia is the home of University of Missouri, the fighting Tigers. Just about all of downtown is the University which makes it nice for walking with many shops and breweries.
Brian took us out for dinner to a nice Italian restaurant. Afterwards, we went to the movies and saw Batman v Superman. I enjoyed the movie. It’s definitely a different take from my old comic books.
The next day, we visited Rock Bridge Memorial State Park located just south on the out skirts of the city. The park is known for the rock bridge and the caves. The park is free and we parked at the trailhead for the Devil’s Icebox Trail. This trail provide the birth of other trails and we wanted to see the bridge. It is located just about .5 mile down the trail.
Most of the info about the park was ABOUT the cave’s. There is about three and half miles of survey caves that follow the water stream through the mountain. Sadly, the caves were close for us due to bat bacteria that can be transmitted by humans. It’s called white nose bacteria. Bad for bat’s.
The cave info say’s that the caves have been explore by many people over the last few years. Following the water flow, there is three and half miles but if you take into account side passages, seven miles have been recorded. We sure wanted to at lease poke our heads into the cave….but it was blocked off.
After an afternoon of hiking, I saw an A&W Root Beer billboard sign and I though of a root-beer float. It’s been ages since we have had one. It’s only 30 minutes away. We have no schedule, let’s do it! We drove to Boonsville, MO, about 32 miles from Columbia. We took the Louis and Clark Trail, followed the Missouri River and landed into an old historic town of Boonsville. There we found an old A&W. We had a float in a frosted mug at an old A&W “joint” in historic Boonsville, MO. We learned that Boonville is named after Daniel Boone sons who owned a salt distribution business in the area.
