Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
Patty, Brooks and I beat the crowd out of town and back this week and had a mostly relaxing four days at Table Rock Lake. I say mostly because, well, you know any significant change of routine involves some bobbing and weaving and discombobulation.
This is the second time in the last five years we went to Table Rock, and we stayed at the same resort this time, Lighthouse Lodge in Kimberling City.
The cabins were a little rough in 2015, but we gave it another shot because we liked the setting and the nearby stores in Kimberling City.
We discovered that the resort is under new, group ownership and that some of the cabins, including ours, had been renovated and others were in the process of being renovated.
All in all, it was pretty good. The man who owns the cabin we were staying in was on the premises two of the four days we were there, and he was helpful and accommodating. He even let me borrow his kayak one day. (You’ll see that in one of the photos.)
I made a big mistake, though, by failing to arrange in advance to rent a boat. The boats at several marinas were booked, but I finally was able to arrange one-day rental of a pontoon boat at a marina in northern Arkansas. It took about an hour to get there, but it was a nice drive and we got to see a different part of the lake, right on the Missouri-Arkansas border.
With that, let’s get on to the pictures…
We love the old sign for the lodge, even though it hasn’t lit up for years. And our favorite part of the sign is the whited-out section under the word “pool.” The words that were there were “indoor toilets.” Fortunately, one of the new resort owners also loves the sign and is planning to refurbish it…including restoring the words “indoor toilets.”
The cabins — this was ours — are atop a relatively steep slope that eases down to the water.
This is the view from our cabin, looking down the slope. There are more than a dozen piers in this area for people to dock their boats.
Plenty of people swim off the ends of the piers. Here Brooks and Patty were enjoying life on floaties.
This was my first time in a kayak. It took a little getting used to — the craft responds immediately to the slightest shift in weight — but it was a lot of fun. Being out on the water on anything is fun…Photo by B. Fitzpatrick
It didn’t take Patty long to get the hang of driving the pontoon boat, while I “trolled.” The only setback related to the pontoon rental was our anchor got stuck — really stuck — at the end of the day, and I had to cut the line and consign the anchor to the bottom of the lake. That cost me an extra $65, plus the $20 to rent the damn thing. (Next time I’ll forgo an anchor and either just drift or tie up to trees.) Photo by B. Fitzpatrick
Here’s another singular sign, this one on Highway 13, no more than a mile from Lighthouse Lodge.
Just past the Kimberling City sign, Highway 13 swoops down to the lake and the graceful Kimberling City bridge.
I hate to end on this note, but I would be remiss if I didn’t show you this. I felt like I had stumbled on to Stone County Trump re-election headquarters, but it was just a pop-up operation out of the back of a trailer that had been set up in a strip mall on Highway 13. Business was brisk. Take a close look at those two “American” flags bearing images of guns. Also, the message on the flag in the foreground is unmistakable and, unfortunately, reflects the political persuasion that dominates southern Missouri.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Anchors away !
That’s the truth…Never got “aweigh” that last drop.
Your reflections remind me of visiting Table Rock Lake as it was being built in the 1950s. My dad and I fished off the Kimberling City bridge – not the one in your photo, but the one hundreds of feet below that was inundated when the lake filled. I recall seeing the dam being built, the rushing White River on its last legs as a wild river, and the muscle shells nearly the size of dinner plates that were strewn along the rocky shoreline. Thanks for that memory jolt, Jim.
That is a fine memory, Steve…I had no idea there was a bridge beneath the existing bridge — although it makes perfect sense in the context you paint…I would liked to have seen that rushing “wild river.”
You used the word “trolling” in one of your cutlines, Jim, and it reminded me of the first time I ever heard the word. It was while Dad and I were fishing along the Little Pomme de Terre River in the Fairfield, Mo., area in the early 1960s. I asked him what the two men on the boat that was slowly passing by us out on the open water were doing, fishing rods in hand, and he said they were trolling. Unfortunately, Fairfield, like the earlier Kimberling City bridge, is no more, as it is now under water at the bottom of what became Truman Reservoir. It was easily Dad’s favorite place to fish and get away from the stresses associated with the big-city newspaper world.
Yes, that iconic Lighthouse Lodge sign takes one back to a simpler, more peaceful time in America, which many of us desperately long for these days but aren’t going to get as long as there are any number of people out there who are locked and loaded and eager to kill at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. Conversation and civil discussions of the issues that divide us in some way? They are not the least bit interested. In any event, Happy Independence Day to you and yours, Jim, along with your other regular readers.
I like to fish at Truman Lake, too, Rick. It’s not nearly as pretty as Table Rock but significantly closer. I didn’t know your Dad fished, but good to know he did.
“Changes in latitude, changes in attitude” can do wonders for the psyche. Also shows you don’t have to go far for a refreshing change. Love that picture looking down on the bridge.