Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Spring was here...

I hope everyone was able to enjoy the day of spring. I sure wish it would have stayed around longer! We took full advantage of it. We spent much of the afternoon at the park in Camdenton. This park is 25-30 minutes away, but its the nicest/biggest park in the area (that I've found). We had lots of fun. Taylor loves to swing and climb up the bars, which she does very good without my help. Today the park had alot more kids and Colin just stood back and watched.

























After we left the park, I decided to head to Ha Ha Tonka State Park. I've heard about the park and that there were Castle ruins at the top. I'm glad we did! This was pretty cool. Robert M. Snyder, a wealthy Kansas City businessman, first visited the site in 1903 and was so impressed that he eventually purchased more than 5,000 acres. He envisioned a private retreat with a European-style castle, with a center atrium rising three and one-half stories to a skylight. Snyder also planned an 80-foot-high water tower, greenhouses and a carriage house. Construction began in 1905 only to be halted a year later with the untimely death of Snyder in one of the state's first automobile accidents. Snyder's sons finished building their father's dream, though not quite as elaborately as originally planned. Eventually, the property was leased for use as a hotel, until tragedy struck in 1942. The entire interior was gutted by fire when sparks from a chimney ignited the roof. The carriage house burned the same day and in 1976, the water tower was burned by vandals. Today only ruins remain. ( A little bit of History for you that I copied and pasted! I cheated!) I was pretty amazed at the whole thing!


This was a carriage house

It's a lonnnnnggggggg way down...this made me a little nervous...
Walking up to the front of the Castle; looking into the basement
I would like to go back sometime and just take in the scenery and look a little at the Park itself. It was a pretty big castle too. Kinda neat...wish I had gone here sooner.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Say, it looks like you guys had a fun day. Maybe when Papa and Gamma comes down, we could go to those places and see them with you. Sure would be fun. I hope I don't sit in any water again to get my pants wet, ha, ha!

Love ya all, Papa xo

Anonymous said...

those 3D glasses sure look good on you tay!! hehe...i had a lot of fun with them too kiddo!!

it also looks like you had bunches of fun at the park and at the castle...that looks like a cool castle!! i cant wait to see you guys on monday!!!! :-D

Anonymous said...

Glad the kids had such a great time at the park. Sorry to hear it's the closest decent one. The castle ruins look cool! I'd love to see them sometime. Looks like something out of Watcher in the Woods :)

Anonymous said...

Weel, It looks like a fun time was had by all. Have to go to that park with you ourselves this summer. And the castle is really neat too. Be carefull if you go back again, don't want anyone to get hurt or fall. Am I nervous or what?????? Love, G-Ma XO XO