Tuesday March 24 - Travel day from Petit Jean (AR) to Paducah KY + Missouri hike - 2.6 miles

The day started out leaving our cabin fairly early in the morning.  We took Arkansas 7 North for a few curvy and foggy hours and then US-65 up through Branson Missouri.  My old friend US-60 led us East for hours all the way to Paducah with only brief diversions on other roads.  It was all very peaceful but also seemingly endless.  In a way it isn't surprising as this was the first day of the 'lets get home' portion of the trip so it was a lot of miles to cover.


For a leg stretcher I used Alltrails and found a hike in the Mark Twain National Forest that was pretty close to our US-60 through route.  What I didn't look at in detail (and would have been challenging to determine quickly) was that this trail started about 6 miles off of a paved road.  So while not a very long in miles journey, it was a little more rugged to get to it than we were hoping for as a quick mid-trip walk.  It was also a little remote with marginal cell service and warnings about bear activity.  While pleasant enough, the trail was supposed to end at a spring of some sort and it seemed to just end at a grassy turn around loop.  So the walk wasn't a hit.  Still, it added a few miles and some break time to our hike filled trip.





The Best Western Paducah was a mixed bag.  Given the times we are in it would be nice if the room and property in general were impeccably clean but our room and the guest laundry weren't all that clean. Still, we got an over-sized room as a BW Rewards status member and it made for a few hours of pleasant sofa sitting while watching the Great British Baking show.  Neither of us had an amazing night of sleep for whatever reason.

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