Castle in the Sky? In Missouri??

Location: Damsite Campground (COE); Hermitage, Missouri

It's a kick back and relax stop at this COE campground. It's also a day of air conditioning because there is a heat advisory for today. Combining temps in the mid 90's and high humidity gives a heat index of 108. I had hopes that the storms that passed through last night and this morning would bring cooler temperatures but I was wrong. The storms approached from the west without any cool temps behind the front. Oh well, it's just for today and the temps will moderate beginning tomorrow.

I took this picture as I was leaving the last campground. I tried it get it several times but forgot to have the phone ready until the day I was leaving.

Representative of rural country road in south central Missouri

This is a frightening thing for RV'ers traveling down strange two lane roads in the middle of nowhere. I saw the bridge a long time before seeing the clearance sign, then breathed a sigh of relief. Upon see the bridge from the distance, I suddenly remembered I haven't been checking bridge clearances when planning a tow.

Recently overlaid four lane highway with little traffic on a pretty weather day. Nice.

This is the view of the campground and lake as you enter.

Nice campsite.

While Liberty's AC was cooling things off after getting set up, I drove to the back side of the dam to check it out. Looked like the gate were opened fully and releasing the max. It had an unusual amount of foam which smelled badly. The foam is decaying biological junk. 

A nicely framed picture of the lake while out walking around the campground.

Talking about weather, I have a new problem. The Mississippi River is flooding in Minnesota and moving south. I have reservations for three days beginning July 14th at Hickory Creek (COE campground) which is on the banks of the Mississippi River just south of Davenport, Iowa. Checking online, the Corps has closed the campground and it is due to re-open (post-flood?) on July 12th which is two days before my reservation. That's only a two day margin of error. Am I willing to bank on that two days or should I cancel and make another reservation further inland? I was looking forward to staying at Hickory Creek so I could drive into Davenport to look at the Roller Gate Dam I saw a few years ago. There aren't any COE campgrounds in that area that aren't on the banks of the river and that fit into the path of my travels and current reservations. I was able to find a couple of Illinois State parks that seems to have plenty of vacancies. That many vacancies on just two week notice is a little troublesome, but I think it will be OK if I need them. My plan is to wait and see while keeping up with the flood and state park vacancies. If it isn't one thing, it's another. But things like this is what makes life less boring. 

After doing laundry at a small but nice laundromat and getting a haircut from Walmart (by the way, the stylist wanted to escape her life and was hoping to hitch a ride with me. I sympathized with her life, but it was a big NO on giving a ride), I was able to explore something interesting. Is an old dilapidated castle on the top of a semi-mountain interesting? If you're anything like me, you just said, "a castle in Missouri"? After traveling around this country, I'm not too surprised about some of the things people have done. 

A Kansas City business man bought 5,000 acres of land in the foothills of the Ozarks back in the early 1900's. His plan was to build a retirement home and disappear from civilization. He imported skilled Scottish masons to build him a castle using local stone. Sadly, he never saw it finished. He died in one of the first car accident in Missouri around 1906. His sons finished the job but the castle was gutted by fire in 1942 and bad luck seemed to follow. I gave up my research at that point since I didn't want to jinx myself with any more bad ju-ju. I have enough to spare and can loan my excess to anybody who wants some. Anyway, I saw a picture of the ruins of the castle several weeks ago and wanted to see it in person. I was most interested in the use of the buttresses I saw in the picture. They are very impressive in real life. Instead of explaining them, I'll try to remember to point them out in one of my pictures. It was an interesting visit that lasted only about an hour, was free and included a one mile walk. All in all, a good day.

This the remnants of the carriage house near the parking lot. It was also gutted with fire along with the castle.

This is the first view of the castle. Each exterior wall had buttresses. 

The castle is fenced off due to liability reasons. Just a few years ago, you could wander around inside and inspect the construction.

This is the rear of the castle with it's own set of buttresses. If the buttress wasn't connected to the castle at the bottom then it would be considered a "flying buttress". 

This is the view from the castle. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed about 180 miles north to Mark Twain country. It will be the longest tow so far on this trip and I weirdly am looking forward to the long drive. The road looks nice and the weather a little cooler. I'll use to trip to do some "thinking driving" and tighten the knots on some of my memory demons that are trying to get loose. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.