Table Rock Lake - Day 4 - Tuesday

It really didn't matter how stifling hot it was, each morning began with at least 2 pots of Muletown coffee, my camera and a fantastic view!

The weather was perfect for a day on the lake kayaking and we were all anxious to hit the water!

The rock formations were just incredible to paddle around as you could see the depths of the rock deep down into the clear water!

Our cabin can be seen from this photo and if you look closely, the 3 kayakers near the wall of rock are Scott, Steve and Patti. I paddled across to the other shore where I spotted this Great Blue Heron in a tree up above! He was none too happy that I was in his territory!

After several hours on the water, we paddled back to the boat launch, where we talked to a couple we had acquainted with when we launched earlier. They told us that going the opposite way from the launch would make for a great kayaking excursion for us, as the lake narrows to a river and if you go far enough you will come to a bridge, so we were excited about exploring that way tomorrow! 

We loaded up the kayaks and drove the 1/8th mile trek back to up our cabin. We decided to do some more exploring and located Roaring River State Park. We located some of the several campgrounds and streams where people were trout fishing, then came upon a huge fish hatchery! It was the coolest thing ever to see!

There is a large cave with spring-fed water that was so cool to see the trout swimming about! The limestone made the color of the water such a beautiful shade of jade!

Walkway to the spring-fed cave

 I convinced Scott, Steve and Patti to take a short hike up to the top of the cave, even tho Patti said she was in flip flops not made for hiking! Pfft! C'mon, I promise it will be worth it!

 The view of the hatchery from up top was well worth the hot hike up and comments from the others that it better be worth it!

Overlooking the Fish Hatchery

Mountain View

Fish Hatchery where trout are released into the river

We were all so surprised that this area was so rich in trout fishing. It's obviously one of the biggest sports in the area! We left the hatchery, did a little more exploring around the park and found a lodge where we decided that tomorrow night we would eat our last dinner at. Trout was on the menu and it after seeing all the fish at the hatchery, it had our mouths watering for a trout dinner!

Back at the cabin, we had another spectacular sunset to end a very fun and full day!