Karst Trail at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park

This is the first of a series on the trails at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park.  Rock Bridge Memorial State Park is located just south of Columbia.  Beautiful, and well maintained, there is lots to do there, and even more to see. 

My son-in-law and I are hiking the trails one at a time.  We start this series with the Karst Trail which which is named after a a "landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves." 

Entrance to the trail from the parking lot.

There are a lot of sinkholes in Missouri, there are a lot at the park, but I have never seen so many sink holes in one place than what I saw in this park.

Options

Below are pictures of just two, of the many, sink holes we walked by:

Overall impression?   The Karst trail is picturesque, lots of variety, and a pleasant walk. Nothing breathtaking, I will show  you some of that later, but interesting nonetheless. Pleasant.  It took us less than 45 minutes to hike the two mile loop.  We did not see a soul either.  You can actually make a day of it by stringing together some of the smaller trails like this one,  but unfortunately you will have to drive to some of them since they do not all connect. There is one larger 8 mile loop which  I will cover later. 

Another Little Free Library

About one hundred yards from the Daniel Boone Regional Library, here in Columbia, I found another little library.  This one is actually registered with Little Free Library at www.littlefreelibray.org.

As  you can see it even has a registration, or charter, number on the lower right side.

I am a huge believer in books.  Not the ebook, or digital version, which I think provide an inferior experience, but rather the old fashioned kind that you can hold in your hand.

I plan on building one over this winter to launch this coming spring but I am going to specialize in children’s books. There are only  two chartered ones, this one and another one I  do not have a picture of yet.  The one I wrote about two days ago does not have a charter,  and there are bound to be others.  Columbia is a college town, and is generally a book loving community.  KOMU TV ran a story about several I have not seen  yet, some without charters,  in July of this  year.

Here is what the Little Free Library web site has to say about how the project got started:

 n the beginning—2009--Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a former school teacher who loved reading. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. His neighbors and friends loved it. He built several more and gave them away. Each one had a sign that said FREE BOOKS. Rick Brooks, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, saw Bol's do-it-yourself project while they were discussing potential social enterprises. Together, the two saw opportunities to achieve a wide variety of goals for the common good.

In September 2015, the organization reported over 32,000 chartered Little Free Library sites in all 50 U.S. states,  and in over 70 other countries world wide.

Fall Sale at Tryathletics - A Columbia Tradition

Columbia is blessed with some great locally owned and operated business such as Tryathletics.  If your local chances are you already know about their annual shoe sale which is always held around this time of year.  The sale started this morning and I stopped by there on my way to work, and purchased two pair of high quality running shoes for half price.  Not the shoes you get at the discount or big box stores, but the ones that you find at the serious sporting good and sport specialty stores.

When I got there the place was packed.  The parking lot was full, and there was even a food truck outside doing a very brisk business.  I should have taken a picture of that! The picture to the left is only a fraction of the huge selection they had to offer.

 I am a huge supporter of shopping locally at locally owned and operated enterprises.  I am proud put in a good word for them.

1605 Chapel Hill Rd. 
Columbia, MO 65203
(573)-447-2453 (phone)
                                                            (573)-447-4477 (fax)

Little Free Libraries Come to Columbia Missouri

Some  ideas are so fresh, so elegant, and make so much sense that I just fall in love with them.  Then there are some extra special ones that go even further.  They spread a sense of brotherly love, cooperation, and goodwill.

Netflix is an example of the first.  I have long been a fan of Netflix starting way back when they were in the business of just shipping you a DVD through the mail.  I was glad to finally escape the awful store front débâcle that was the retail DVD movie rental business.   An example of the second kind is the little free library movement.

Yesterday I was out walking when I passed a gentleman who I often see out walking with his dog.  We exchanged greetings and I noticed he was carrying books.  I was curious as to what kind of books somebody would be carrying while they walked and asked him.  He told me, and then explained he was going to the "little library" which was less than a hundred yards up the road on Green Meadows Court,  just across the street from the Green Meadows Court and Greenbriar Drive intersection.













According to the little free library map there are six other locations ran by local volunteer participants who have registered.  There may be others that are not listed. The fabulous web site that started it all is located online at http://littlefreelibrary.org/.  The movement has spread throughout the United States and even overseas.  You can listen to a short news report about it, less three minutes,  thanks to Vermont public radio.

My own neighbourhood library is about a quarter of a mile away from my front door.   Today I dropped off two books and picked up one. 

Greenbriar Extension Completed

My last post was about the construction of the Greenbriar extension which I found out about by accident when work had just started in 2012.  For that last post you have a visual tour that runs roughly from north to south.  This tour runs from south to north, in the opposite direction, on the completed extension.
 
The Katy Trail itself runs a little over 264 miles across Missouri from Clinton in the west to Machens Missouri in the East.  Columbia's own MKT trail connects to the Katy trail, and the MU Recreation Trail connects to that. The Greenbriar extension connects the south west section of Columbia to the MU Recreation trail.  More specifically, it connects to the  Hinkson Creek Trail section of the MU Recreation Trail.  Sounds confusing?  It is.  The trail system is complex until you get to know it.

The extension starts on the south side at the corner of Greenbriar Drive and Green Meadows Circle. Not Green Meadows Street, the longer street everyone is familiar with that runs east and west past the Beth Shalom synagogue, but is a little semi-circular street behind the better known thoroughfare.  You take Greenbriar Drive heading north, to get to the Greenbriar extension. The pictures for the following tour were taken on a bicycle ride about an hour ago.  I am on this section of the trail you are looking at (walking, running or bicycling) at least three times a week.  Even during the winter when it is ice and snow covered.  The Greenbriar extension is centrally located so  you can access both sides of Columbia, and the down town/Mizzou campus area, with relative ease.

This is where the extension starts on Green Meadows Court about one mile from my house.

 It is pretty much down hill all the way until you get to the extension that opens up between two house just before Greenbriar ends at a cul de sac.You make a right onto the extension.

Now it gets a little steep, but the trail is beutifully done.   Watch out for the blind corners - you really can't see anyone coming up on you from any direction on this first switchback!

This is the view looking down from where I took the first photograph.

Here is pretty much the same view from a different angle.

I have just ridden past the bridge, seen in the last two pictures.

Here is another switchback that was just hidden from view in the last picture. Still riding down the hill. The visibility on this switchback is not a problem.

Onto the level area.  This particular part of the trail is always lush and green.

There is some whimsical bicycle art along this stretch.  I will show you one, and leave it up to you to spot t he rest of them. Make sure to look up, to the left, and to the right.

The whole extension is a bit more than a quarter mile.  Here it ends at the Mizzou trail which connects to the Katy Trail further down the road. The MIzzou tennis courts are just out of sight in this view, partially obscured by the trees in the right hand corner of the picture,  but about another two hundred yards north.

This sign is visible from the last picture but now I am at the end of the extension ready to ride back up. So, I am heading back from where I came from in the other direction. I wanted to show you the sign because it has the directions, and distances.

As I said in my last post, the trail system in Columbia keeps getting better and better.

It seems that Google Maps now provides most of the trail details.  You can follow Greenbriar on the map until you get to the extension, and then follow the extension to the rest of the trails.


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