Missouri State Parks: Lake of the Ozarks

This past weekend I went "camping" at Lake of the Ozarks State Park. I say "camping" because it was in cabins, which in my opinion is not actually camping, but I am not entirely sure what else to call it. We cooked over a campfire. We froze our butts off in the freezing (literally freezing) temperatures and we had to walk to the restroom/shower house. This all sounds like camping. But we slept in cabins that (thankfully) had heat and electricity. 

It wasn't entirely glamping because there still was not much that would be glamorous about what we did but still I feel like hardcore campers would not view this as camping.

Anyway. I digress.

I went to the Ozarks State Park for the first time ever with J and 18 other college friends for their 5th annual friend Thanksgiving there. 

I do not have a ton of experience in camping/cabin camping in cold temperatures and I have very little tolerance for the cold, so this weekend was a little rough. But so worth it and very much needed. 

The day time temperature barely got over 35 and the evenings were sometimes lower than 20, but as long as you layered properly and stayed close to the amazingly huge fire, it really was not too bad.

I loved the cabins and I hope I can get my siblings to go there sometime in the Spring or Summer for a family "campout". Each cabin holds up to 6 people with 3 beds. One bed is a futon style and is on the first floor. There is a ladder that leads up to a loft area where 2 more beds are located. Each cabin has a kitchen table area and counter space. There is also a heater that works decently well, but also a fire pot belly stove. Each night we would take embers from the big fire outside to get all the cabins' stoves lit. The state park provides wood for each stove and our cabin made the rule of if you got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, you had to put in another piece of wood in the stove. 

Thank god, I never have to pee in the middle of the night because I have a feeling I would have fallen down the ladder trying to get to the bathroom and would have somehow manages to ruin the fire or not close the door well enough and make smoke fill the cabin. This did not happen, thankfully.

I wish I had pictures of the cabins and the surrounding areas, but I somehow managed to not take any. Each cabin had a fire pit with a grill like most campsites have and 2 large picnic tables. We did all our cooking over the fire pit (foil packs, deer meat, chili for one night and a full Thanksgiving feast, including a turkey the other night) and massively relied on the fire for warmth.

It was so cold the veggies and dip in the veggie tray froze. And the beer froze. And all the water bottles froze.

This weekend made the "cold" temps while camping with my family in Johnson Shut-Ins feel like balmy summer night temperatures. 

I highly suggest these cabins to anyone who wants to spend time in a state park with a group of people but camping in tents is not the best option for you. 

I need to go back to this State Park to actually get a good feel of it still. Since it was so cold we did not do a whole lot of exploring around, unfortunately. I did some hiking around the lake, but that trail was in the cabin area of the park. Besides driving around, I don't even know much about this park, but I totally plan on returning to learn more.

We did spend part of Saturday at Ha Ha Tonka State Park, but I will talk about that and include pictures in another post. That is a park that is completely worth checking out. 

And what is a camping trip without stopping at a winery? We stopped at St. James Winery on our way back to St. Louis, which was a spur of the moment stop. Car trips are only fun if you randomly make unplanned stops.

I am now up to 3 state parks that I have stayed over night in this year and 7 all together that I have been in. Not too shabby.