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Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, Missouri
One of our favorite places to hike near St. Louis is the Shaw Nature Reserve. Only about 30 min from the city, it feels a world away. The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis purchased the reserve land as a safe refuge for the plant collection from the smoke pollution of the 1920s. It has developed into a wonderful site to explore and view wildlife as well as view plants and habitat native to the Missouri region. The trails range…
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Where to find Bountiful Bluebells near St. Louis
One of my favorite spring wildflowers is the Virginia bluebell. They are native to Missouri and can be found in moist, wooded areas or floodplains. These delicate blossoms emerge in early spring and tend to peak around the very end of March to mid-April in our region. Here are six of our favorite area parks to see a stunning sea of bluebells in bloom. 1. Shaw Nature Reserve The Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, Missouri is a wonderful place…
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Rugged Beauty Awaits at Indiana’s Turkey Run State Park
If you follow us on Instagram (@midwestnomadfamily), you may have noticed that we did a little road trip to Indiana over the weekend. One of the highlights of our getaway was a visit to one of Indiana’s prettiest parks, Turkey Run in Marshall. The park has 11 different trails that wander through rugged ravines and along scenic Sugar Creek. A couple of the trails even involve scrambling up a series of ladders through a deep gorge. If there has been…
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Kid sized work bench
As the kids get a bit bigger (Read – I don’t have to constantly watch them), they have been spending more and more time out in the garage with me “Helping Daddy”. They are often looking for things to play with and tend to steal every tool within reach and scatter them around the garage. It’s quite a bit of fun, though it often means I spend a bit of time looking for the missing tools or other “projects” they…
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The Mighty Merc – Overdue Refresh
The end of 2017 and all of 2018 was nutty to say the least. Between work going crazy and the fun of building a house, the Merc has been neglected a bit. Very few wheeling trips, and zero preventative maintenance. Things have started to balance out a bit now on the home and work front, which meant I have been able to sneak some garage time in.
