Ray Behrens Campground in Perry, Missouri April 30 – May 14, 2025

We left Boulder Campground on Wednesday, April 30th for what we thought would be a harrowing 3 1/2 hour drive to Ray Behrens Campground in Perry Missouri for a 14-night stay.

Severe Weather Forecast

We thought THAT because we had been carefully watching the weather forecasts several days prior to our departure and seeing several strong lines of severe weather bands moving across the route we would be taking. We follow YouTube weather forecaster Ryan Hall on his channel for all of our long-term planning to see what the weather may possibly be like where and when we’re going that way.

And it was going to be raining in Boulder Campground the morning we departed. So we got up at 6 am and had breakfast then started packing up and tearing down Nomad. Sure enough, it started raining around 7:30 am. Our plan was to leave around 1 pm so we would arrive by the 5 pm check-in time. But Cindy called ahead and they said we could arrive at any time that day since no one was in our upcoming site.

We finished packing up in a light drizzle of rain and left Boulder Campground around 11 am. As it turned out, that was probably for the best. We ended up basically threading our way between severe weather bands the entire trip, never encountering any bad rains or winds. Driving earlier or later would have almost assured we would driving through dangerous weather. We felt fortunate.

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur

Ray Behrens Campground

Ray Behrens Campground is in the Ray Behrens Recreation Area, located on the southeastern shores of the Mark Twain Lake, near Perry, Missouri. The campground has 165 campsites divided between three main loops. We were staying in the Deer Run Loop. All of the sites have electricity while some, such as ours, also have water and sewer.

There are two short trails in our loop and both of them go to the lake, though it is high up on the shoreline and not down at lake level. One other trail just goes to the main road, lol.

There are bathrooms with flush toilets and showers. There is also a boat ramp and a marina. Cindy was excited about the marina because it was named Blackjack Marina and she thought she could gamble. You can imagine how disappointed she was to discover she could not.

Our Site

Our site was a nice, fairly level though narrow asphalt pad and had full hookups. We had decided NOT to dump before leaving Boulder Campground to give Nomad a bit more weight with our full tanks and thus better stability in the expected high winds on the trip because we knew we could dump as soon as we arrived at our site.

Wednesday after dinner we hiked one of the trails to the lake overlook with Bella. That night we continued watching “The Americas” and enjoyed episode 3, “The Wild West” and episode 4, “The Amazon” before calling it an early night and heading to bed.

It had been a long day.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Thursday morning we awoke to rain. It ended around 9 am and we took Bella on a walk around the campground loop to avoid the muddy trails. Most of the rest of the day was spent reading and writing. Cindy also made some delicious homemade Italian Bread. Then we watched the next two episodes in the first season of “The Americas” during dinner and took Bella for a walk afterward.

Friday morning we tried another one of the trails in our loops, but found it just ended up at the main road. Then we hopped in Voyager to take a driving tour around the other two loops and the marina and we got some more photos of the lake.

This place fills up with families on the weekend. Weekenders by the “boatload” because this part of the lake is very popular with boaters. I think we were the only campers without one over the weekend.

Saturday was Amber’s birthday. From what we heard she had a good day celebrating. We watched the rest of “The Americas” on Saturday and Sunday, including the “Making of…” episode which was just as interesting (to us) as the actual episodes.

Hickory Bluff Trail

Monday we took a hike on the Hickory Bluff Trail in the park. It was a fun hike, we saw some deer and Cindy saw a fox, and we passed a pond that we didn’t expect with deer hoof prints all around the soft bank. But when we got back to Nomad and checked Bella for ticks as we usually do it was like we had waded through an ocean of the little buggers. We picked 7 or 8 off of Bella, which was easy because she had just had her monthly dose of flea, tick and heart worm medicine on the 2nd, so none of the ticks would actually bite her, they just hung in her fur.

We, however, were another matter. We had neglected to spray ourselves with repellant so I found one on my sock while we were outside, then Cindy and I went inside, stripped down and checked each other. I found two on her and she found another one on me. We dressed and a few minutes later I was sitting in my chair, felt something, looked down and one was crawling on my leg. For a while after that, every itch on either one of us caused a “Let me look at you” event as we searched each other several times.

And the 2025 Pulitzer Prize Winners were announced. I talk about the book winners in this post on my writing and book blog.

M. W. Boudreaux Visitor Center

Tuesday we stopped by the M. W. Boudreaux Visitor Center and saw the Clarence Cannon Dam up close. Sadly, a lot of the multi-media presentations in the Visitor Center either didn’t work at all or had no sound, so that was disappointing. More of this administration’s austerity funding, I guess. We’re probably fortunate it was even staffed enough to be open. But we did get some good video of the dam and Mark Twain Lake as well as a WWE Smackdown-style version of two lizards wrestling each other.

Or maybe they were doing some other activity, I’m not sure. You watch the video and see what you think.

Construction of the dam began in 1970 and was completed in 1983. The dam was renamed after the death of Clarence Cannon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Clarence Cannon Dam is made up of 450,000 cubic yards of concrete as well as 3 million cubic yards of earth embankment. It stands 138 feet above the lake bed and is 1,940 feet in length.

The Mark Twain Lake is 18,600 acres in size with 285 miles of shoreline. It has an average depth of 29 feet.

Out And About

Wednesday we drove 20 miles north to Monroe city so Cindy could stop at the Ben Franklin store. It was on Main Street in this Mayberry-like town and I was able to park on the street right in front of the store. While Cindy was inside I was going to roll the windows down for some fresh air, but three ladies were standing on the front sidewalk four feet from my passenger door chattering away and the closed window served to mute at least some of their incessant oratory, so I left it up.

Then it was on to Hannibal, about 20 miles to the east, to do some grocery shopping. Also bought a 50-foot drinking water hose so that I don’t have to piece hoses together again if we’re far from a community water faucet and a new brush on a pole (I’ve lost mine somewhere, somehow). Nomad desperately needs a bath and I prefer a pole brush for that as opposed to being up on a ladder for long periods of time.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Wednesday night we started re-watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation” TV series on DVD that I got about a year ago. This is probably my fifth or sixth time watching the show since it premiered back in 1987. Cindy and I watched it right after we were married, but it was on VHS tapes I had recorded from broadcast TV airing.

The first season was not all that great, but at the time in 1987 it was all we Trekkers had except reruns from the original series two decades earlier. To me, ST:TNG really hit its stride in the third season and by the time it ended in its seventh season it had probably told most of the stories it could at that time.

Since we watched 7 season of “The West Wing” in a little over three months, I assume we’ll probably wrap up sometime in the latter part of September. That’s factoring in two weeks of visiting our grandchildren in Washington State where we won’t be watching it much while we spend time with them.

I will say that the video quality on these ST:TNG DVD episodes is pretty crappy. Cindy mentioned they look like someone used a video camera pointed at a TV screen to record them to DVD. If it hadn’t been more than a year since I purchased the set, I would be returning it.

This And That

Thursday was a trip back to Monroe City as that was the closest place that had a laundromat to do our laundry.

Friday we (Cindy loves to spray the water, leaving the scrubbing to me) washed Nomad; getting all the pollen from the past few weeks off as well as the gravel-road mud we picked up on our way into this campground. The girl looks much better!

Saturday we drove to a couple of nearby trails but they looked like they would have been as tick-infested as the Hickory Bluff Trail (at least these trails had warning signs about the ticks), so we stuck to the asphalt roads near the trails which weren’t being used by traffic.

Sunday I grilled up burgers, chicken, pancakes and bacon for upcoming meals.

And throughout all those days we were reading, writing, tatting and watching TV shows. I also finished reading “What’s Next”, a behind the scenes book account of “The West Wing” TV series and wrote a review of it on my writing and book blog.

Mark Twain Boyhood Home

Monday we took a trip back to Hannibal, Missouri to visit the Mark Twain Boyhood Home. I had been here back in August of 2017 when I was deployed to Missouri, but this would be Cindy’s first time there.

It was a fun visit. I think there have been some changes since I was here eight years ago. But basically you can see homes and places that Samuel Langhorne Clemens used while growing up as a boy to populate his stories about Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and others when he wrote as Mark Twain.

After touring the home and interactive center, we enjoyed lunch at the Mark Twain Dinette. I had eaten here as well back in 2017 and it was still as good as it was back then. Nicer maybe because we were there on a Monday and when I was there it was on a Saturday and much, much busier. Pro tip: They have very good homemade onion rings.

Then we headed back toward Main Street but got distracted by the sound of a riverboat horn. We continued on down to the banks of the Mississippi River and saw the Mark Twain Riverboat go rolling on the river past us, as well as the statue of him on the riverfront. After getting photos and video, we walked back to Main Street to visit the Mark Twain Museum. Lots of interesting things to see and do in the museum.

We stopped at some stores along Main Street, continuing to walk off our lunch, on our way back to Becky’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor for some dessert. Cindy and I both remarked that we hadn’t read any of Mark Twain’s works since high school, so maybe it’s time to do a little re-reading of some of the works of the man William Faulkner called “the father of American literature” and revisit those times.

Tuesday was a day of relaxing, reading and writing, as well as preparing to pack up and leave the next day for our next stop. This has been an enjoyable stop with time to get some errands and tasks done as well as being able to spend some time relaxing.

Thank for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.