Bee Tree and Cave Cliff Park

These two parks are located right outside the St. Louis area. Most of the photos I have of these places I'm not posting. While I had a great time hiking, especially at Cave Cliff Park, most of the photos would be uninteresting to most people. I totally recommend Cave Cliff Park to anyone interested in even easy hiking. There are all sorts of trails that range from beginner to advanced hiking. I probably walked a total of 10-12 miles all said and done. But it was a great time!

First, Bee Tree....

I was told that this house used to be owned by the guy that owned the Union RR. This was his vacation home. It's now only available for weddings.

This little guy is one of the main reasons I wanted to post the photos from this park. As you can see, he's trying to determine if I'm a threat...

He decides that I may be a threat, but he would be safe enough taking off at a run... or in several leaps anyways....

Ever heard of flying squirrels? While He may not be an actual flying squirrel, he was flying pretty well!

There are lots of dogwood trees in this park.

There's a Christian legend behind the dogwood tree. There's a few different versions, but more or less it says that the dogwood used to be a tall strong tree and was used to build the cross that Jesus was hung from. After that, God decided that the dogwood would never be used to make a cross again, so he shrunk and twisted the trunk. After that, the flowers grow with 4 petals in the shape of the cross. The pink dogwood has a tinge of pink on the flowers as a reminder of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.

And now Cave Cliff...

This was my main reason for coming to this park, and the park's name sake. It's hard to tell from this photo, but at the top of the creek there is a cliff that has a cave in the side of it. I climbed to the top. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good shot of the cave. They actually had it barred and boarded off so it didn't make for a very good photo.

This is the view down from the cave height.

This is the view down from the cliff height. I wanted to take photos from right above the cave, but two teenage girls blocked it off and wouldn't move so I could. Ah well. I also, unknowingly, popped my pelvic bone out of place trying to make it up this trail. There were huge boulders in the path that I had to climb up. The boulders were waist high. Climbing that tall of a rock with what feels like 50lbs of weight on my back and around my neck was a bit difficult. And since I had already popped my pelvic bone out of place once before about a month or two earlier, it was a little too easy to pop it out again!

All the greatest parks have railroad tracks running through them!!!

I wanted a good close up of a train, so I was pretty excited when I heard this train coming!

Little did I know it would be the shortest full sized train ever!

This was on the second and shortest trail I walked. It was also the easiest. I love the fact that the bird looks like he's leaning out from the tree! It's actually the angle of the branch that he's resting on.

This is the mighty Mississippi. I'm not sure why, but when I was growing up we were taught to spell it M-I- crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I- humpback-humpback-I. If anyone knows where that actually comes from, please feel free to share!

When standing beside the Mississipi River, you can definitely feel the power and the majesty of the river. You can't help but feel so tiny standing next to it!

There's a lot of rusty boats beside the Mississippi...

I hope you enjoyed! Please upvote and post comments/ask questions!