Busiek State Forest

About 20 minutes south of Springfield, lies Busiek State Forest. 2500 acres of kinda wild, kinda not so much, land, just off the highway, about halfway south to Branson, Missouri. I have a love/hate thing with Busiek. I've been there dozens of times over the past 24 years living in the area. It's great for when you have just a few short hours to get outside and away from town, but it's equally crowded on a nice day and noisy with the nearby highway 65 and gun range. You never quite escape the sound of deer rifles being sighted in and semi trucks whirling past, no matter how loud the creek tries to babble over them.

Anyway, with a few hours to spare on Sunday, I took my family to Busiek for a walk in the mud. We saw an armadillo, plenty of birds and animal tracks and a somewhat full-figured woman fall off of a sycamore log on a creek crossing, while managing to stay dry, ourselves. Nice little Sunday.