Sunday, 12 October
The Drive
Leaving Coon Creek Campground on Lake Shelbyville, we headed southwest toward Indian Creek Campground on Mark Twain Lake in northeastern Missouri—a drive of about 120 miles that took just under three and a half hours.
The first stretch carried us north on IL-128, where tall grain elevators rose above small farming towns, marking their centers like landmarks on the prairie. The scenery settled into a steady rhythm of flat fields, silos, and weathered barns, with only the softest rolls in the land to break the horizon.
Near Dalton City, we turned west to connect with US-51 North, skirting around Decatur before merging onto I-72 West. As we crossed the Illinois River, we spotted a few large barges moving slowly along the waterway. Beyond that point, the landscape began to change—becoming hillier as we approached the Illinois-Missouri border and crossed the wide Mississippi River. We caught sight of one of the big riverboats docked along the shore near Hannibal.
I-72 eventually merged into US-36, and we continued past more stretches of open farmland before turning south on US-24 at Monroe City. Six miles later, we turned at the exit for the Indian Creek Recreation Area and entered the thick forest surrounding Mark Twain Lake.
Indian Creek Campground
Mark Twain Lake in northeast Missouri is a 55,000-acre reservoir created by the Clarence Cannon Dam on the Salt River. Completed in 1983 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it was built for flood control, water supply, and recreation. The lake features 18,000 acres of water and over 285 miles of shoreline. It’s called Mark Twain Lake in honor of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, who was born in nearby Florida, Missouri, in 1835.
Indian Creek Campground, the largest campground on Mark Twain Lake in Missouri, sits on the lake’s northern shore and is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It offers around 215 campsites, including electric, full-hookup, and primitive hike-in tent sites, along with a separate group camping area. Facilities include restrooms with showers, picnic shelters, playgrounds, fish cleaning stations, boat ramps, a swimming beach, and hiking trails, with most sites paved and shaded.
Our Site
We stayed at the East Campground, Fox Loop, Site #110. We first had to stop at the water point near the dump station to fill up though the map showed a water point that I could have probably reached near our campsite. The loop had about a dozen campers in the full hookup sites at the beginning of the loop but the rest of the loop was empty. The campers that were there had large Halloween displays set up which was a nice festive greeting. Our site was a nice paved site with a generous length of up to 82 feet that backed up to a beautiful view of the lake. The 50-amp electric hookup gave us plenty of power, and the site itself was well equipped with a picnic table and fire ring. No other campers were anywhere near us.
We set up camp quickly since it was already around 6:30 and growing dark under the thick, cloudy sky and dense forest canopy. Once everything was in place, we watched the last traces of daylight fade through the back window, then settled in for the evening to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football.
Monday, 13 October (Columbus Day)
Morning
It was raining when we woke, and the forecast showed continued pockets of rain throughout the day. As I looked up attractions in the area, they all were closed. Though we still had reservations for another evening at our campground, we decided to head back home that afternoon.
Around noon, we packed up and headed over to the dump, where we spent an hour flushing our black and grey tanks to clean them out for the winter. Spending this extra time was a benefit of an almost empty campground.
The Drive
Leaving Indian Creek Campground on Mark Twain Lake, we headed west toward Attic Storage in Smithville, Missouri—a drive of about 188 miles that took roughly three and a half hours.
The route carried us up US-24 to Monroe City, then west on US-36 until we joined I-35, which led us straight to Smithville. In Smithville, we parked our trailer in the storage lot and packed the truck as full as possible with refrigerated items and food. It would take a few more trips to get completely unpacked, but that could wait for the next day. We then headed home, already looking forward to our next trip, though not likely until spring.