I kind of fast forwarded our time in Missouri to show you pictures of our new house, but we were actually in MO for a few weeks and went on quite a few adventures! One of these was a hike out at Elephant Rocks State Park.  Jason and I went here back when we were first dating (like… a hella long time ago now) and I remembered it being cool but didn’t actually appreciate how huge the boulders were or how interesting this park actually is!  In addition to the gigantic granite boulders there’s also a lake, piles of quarry tailings, and remains of the quarry itself.

The piles of broken granite were almost as large as some of the boulders.  Apparently they would drill into the rocks and break off or use dynomite to cut it into increasingly smaller chunks.  You can still see the holes in a lot of the granite pieces laying around the park.

IMHO the coolest part was the area where all the stone masons carved their names and dates into the rock.  That and the fact that you can walk right up to the carvings and really see them closely.  Nothing is roped off here and we lucked out in having the part mostly to ourselves the entire time.

Elephant Rocks is definitely worth a stop if you happen to be up in the area! On the way back to the house we stopped by the site of the civil war battle at Pilot Knob, Missouri.  They had a pretty nice small museum.  Apparently there was a little fort there but before they abandoned it, they set the powder keg on fire so theres, understandably, not much left and gigantic hole in the middle of it.