My wife and I moved to Springfield, Missouri in December, 2018. Her new job prompted the transition from Georgia, the state where I was born and lived for 58 years. We are now settled into a house just outside the city limits in a convenient location and are enjoying the features that a city of 250,000 people can offer, including some great restaurants, plenty of outdoor activities, and an incredible music scene. When we refer to Springfield as a “city,” some of the natives chuckle. They think of it more as a large town, and indeed it does have the feel of one. The people we have met so far have been especially friendly and welcoming.

Over the last few months we have taken the opportunity to venture out from the Queen City (a familiar pseudonym for Springfield) to see other parts of Missouri. I had never visited the Show Me State until we came to visit in the fall of 2018, when the leaves were turning brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange. Over the last four months, I have been to St. Louis, Kansas City, Lake of the Ozarks, Columbia, and Branson. Those road trips have taken me from the state’s east border to its west, to the south-central lake district, through the capital to the town of the flagship university, and close to the Arkansas state line in the southwest corner. What’s left? The northern third of the state and the southeast quarter, which are both quite rural.

While I have spent some time and covered a few miles in the Midwest, I didn’t know much at all about the countryside of Missouri before moving here. I have been pleasantly surprised with the beauty of the landscape. Most of the area I have explored is considered part of the Ozarks geographical region. The Ozarks are among the oldest eroded plateaus in North America, and the wearing away of soil over the course of about 200 million years makes them look like a collection of deep valleys between elevated plains. The tallest peak in Missouri is just under 1,800 feet. Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia in the foothills of Appalachia, tops out at 4,783 feet. It’s difficult for me not to compare the unfamiliar with what I know so well, and I find myself frequently seeing similarities between my old and new environs. What I have seen of the southern half of Missouri reminds me a great deal of the piedmont region of Georgia, with gently rolling hills and plenty of vegetation.

St. Louis is in every sense a real city, and it has the tall buildings, monuments, parks, and museums to prove it. My wife and I have been there twice together. Once was a work event for her, but we stayed overnight in the historic Union Station Hotel with its signature spectacular music and light show projected on the ceiling of the Grand Hall. Our second trip was for a weekend getaway when we took in a Cardinals baseball game, spent a few hours at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and visited the Gateway Arch and historic courthouse adjacent to the Mississippi River. We also strolled through Central Library downtown with its impressive exhibit hall.

Our weekend in Kansas City was also associated with a work event, which gave us the opportunity to see a soccer match with Sporting. We also spent a half day shopping and wandering around Country Club Plaza, where the Spanish-style architecture is just as interesting as the stores and restaurants. Of course, no trip to Kansas City would be complete without a taste of BBQ, and we stuffed ourselves with some scrumptious pulled pork and sides at a local franchise called Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue.

I took a solo weekend to work on a writing project at The Lodge of Four Seasons at the Lake of the Ozarks. The Lodge was built in 1965, and it clearly would have been a top-of-the-line resort in its day. After undergoing a $15 million renovation in 2016, The Lodge still offers respectable accommodations and several special features including a multi-story indoor cascading waterfall, a Japanese garden, an indoor/outdoor pool, and a sizeable marina with the largest boats I have ever seen up close. The main restaurant was surprisingly good, where I enjoyed some of the best scallops I have had in a long time. The Lake of the Ozarks was formed in 1931 with the construction of Bagnell Dam on the Osage River. It has a long history as a thriving source of recreation and tourism for central Missouri. A recent book by Bill Geist titled Lake of the Ozarks: My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America is a laugh-out-loud memoir of his days working as a teenager at his uncle’s resort, Arrowhead Lodge.

I started working as a special projects coordinator at Missouri State University Libraries in June, and on my first day at the job I accompanied the Dean of Libraries to Columbia, home of the state’s flagship University of Missouri. Columbia is a classic university town with fine architecture, cultural institutions, athletics, and a charming downtown. Naturally, Columbia has a thriving nightlife, perhaps best represented by Booches, a pub and pool hall dating back to the 19th century. An interesting fact about the town: when it was originally designed, a tract of land was set aside specifically for a university. We traveled through Missouri’s capital, Jefferson City, that had recently suffered considerable damage from a strong tornado. The whole area was also struggling with terrible floodwaters courtesy of the Missouri River that had completely covered the small airport, destroyed some local businesses, and left homeowners living on their own “islands” accessible only by boat. Missouri certainly has its share of violent, unpredictable weather.

When we first began to consider the move to Springfield, we were happy to learn how close the city is to one of the most popular tourist towns in the Midwest. Branson has been welcoming vacationers to the Ozarks since it was incorporated in 1912. Among the first attractions was Marvel Cave, one of many underground caverns open to the public in Missouri. In 1960 the operators of the site opened Silver Dollar City, a small park modeled after a frontier town. Over the next few decades the site grew into a family-centric amusement park with roller coasters, children’s rides, and various forms of entertainment. The first music theaters began to open in Branson in the mid-20th century. By the 1980s, the town was bringing in major music stars such as Roy Clark. Eventually, other big names would move in to build their own theaters such as Boxcar Willie, Jim Stafford, Ray Stevens, Andy Williams, Glen Campbell, and Dolly Parton. In recent years, the theaters have reduced in number, but other attractions have taken their place, such as water parks, museums, wineries, and more. We have visited Branson twice thus far, and on our last trip we had a fabulous dinner at the Osage Restaurant at Top of the Rock, a resort built by Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro Shops, which is headquartered in Springfield.

I had no idea how much Missouri would have to offer in the way of urban amenities, places of interest, and abundant natural resources. Our fair city also happens to be the official birthplace of Route 66, and Missouri is close to the heart of this iconic mid-20th-century roadway that linked Chicago to the west coast. Travelers through Missouri can still marvel at some of the quirky roadside attractions that are vestiges of the highway’s glory days: Meramec Caverns, a giant red rocking chair, Mule Trading Post, and Uranus Fudge Factory (pun absolutely intended). Our exploration of this diverse state has just begun, and I’m sure future blog posts will be devoted to what we find along the way.