Taum Sauk, the highest point in Missouri, was the last highpoint I navigated to solely with internet resources: America's Roof, TopoZone and MaqQuest. After this trip I purchased the first of several guide books on the highpoints.

Summit marker at Taum Sauk.

Missouri is also the last state I would summit in a one-day round trip drive from Bloomington (the others were Indiana and Ohio). So maybe Missouri (and my next highpoint, Illinois) represent the dividing line where I started getting serious about reaching all 50 US state highpoints.

I had another "alpine start" for this summit. Woke up early in the morning and enjoyed the pre-dawn drive west across Indiana 46 and onto I-70. I watched the sunrise in my rearview mirror as I speed west and hit St. Louis's morning rush hour traffic.

I didn't have any problems getting as far as Arcadia, MO, but then I realized I didn't have exact directions to the Taum Sauk State Park. My MapQuest directions ended at Arcadia, and I drove around a bit until I was able to figure out from the TopoZone map I had printed out which road went to the park.

Once at the park, finding and reaching the highpoint was very easy. From the parking lot, the highpoint was only a short walk down a paved path. I was rather surprised that this highpoint had a summit register since it was in a state park and easily reached from the parking lot. I'm more used to seeing registers at the tops of peaks in Colorado.

No one else was around while I took a few pictures and signed the register. Then I took a quick side trip to the look out tower. If I had made this a two-day trip, I would have liked to hike some of the trails in the area, including visiting Johnson Shut Ins Park and the Mina Sauk Falls.

My drive back home was more punishing: increased traffic and the return to home as opposed to the sense of adventure when going somewhere new. In an interesting coincidence, I receive a "Word of the Day" from the Merriam-Webster website, and the word I had received while away was "Arcadia".