After our canceled trip plans we were still itching to go somewhere in Pumpkin and maybe try out the generator. As long as we were within phone reach and less than a day away, we felt comfortable leaving Russ and Mike if we were needed (Russ is OK, as it turned out). So, we decided to make a little 1-2 night shake-down cruise. Tues. the 3rd, we headed east toward Elephant Rocks in Eastern Missouri. We stopped and spent the night at Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. But, something wasn't quite right. This was our first trip without Ditto. I was looking back over the past posts and realized I had not mentioned Ditto. We lost our little Ditto on July 24. We were, needless to say, heartbroken. Ditto was our traveling buddy. She took every trip we ever made with us in our first Pumpkin and in our current Lil' Pumpkin. This trip was difficult when we let ourselves think about it. So, we tried not to, but not too successfully.
The next morning, we headed out to Elephant Rocks State Park. It was only a few miles, so we arrived there just before noon.
Johnson Shut-Ins and Elephant Rocks are beautiful places to visit, but something was missing.
