Ohio Trip 2019: Part 7 - The Cabins at Rocky Pond
From Hannibal we took US 36 west into Kansas. AirBnb found us a great place to stay again. This time it was a modern cabin in Belleville Kansas, with a view of Rocky Pond from the rocking chair on the porch. The outside of the cabin did not have as much character as the old cabin in Illinois, but the owners of the Rocky Pond cabin did a great job of creating a cozy setting on the inside.
For lunch on our way to Belleville, we stopped in the small town of Stewartsville and ate in the picnic shelter in the City Park. We watched kids playing on the playground while we ate our roasted beet salads that we had planned to eat the night before in Hannibal, but didn’t. A peaceful lunch in a peaceful town on a nice sunny day.
As we approached Belleville, Right Buddy (RB) looked at Google Maps to verify our directions to Rocky Pond. Then she noticed we would go right by the Paul Boyer Museum of Animated Carvings museum in Belleville. We looked it up when we could get a good enough cell phone signal and it looked rather interesting. We normally don’t like museums, but this one was interactive and appealed to our engineering side. However, its hours were rather limited. We made it to the museum near the end of their posted hours, but they were closed. Of course, it might have had something to do with the fact that it was Good Friday. That just means we’ll have to come back someday!
Rocky Pond is a city park with a campground. According to the sign, the pond was built in 1865 by the Rock Island R.R. for supplying steam engines with water and refrigerated cars with ice. Now it is a wonderful place for locals to picnic and fish. The campground has partial hookups with restrooms and cold showers. People can also dry camp for free and it looked like a few kids were setting up their tents to take advantage of that.
As we took a short walk around the pond, we noticed there was a frisbee golf course set up on the far side of the pond. We also saw what looked like Christmas displays. Apparently, the large Christmas light displays have been an annual event at Rocky Pond since 2010 and draws quite a crowd. Check out the Rocky Pond Christmas Lights Park page on Facebook.
The Cabins at Rocky Pond are a group of three small, modern cabins. Even though they are small, they make efficient use of the space while remaining very comfortable. Our cabin would comfortably sleep four adults and would sleep five people if one or more were children. On the ground floor there was a trundle bed that held two adults comfortably. Then there was a ladder up to one loft with two single mattresses and another ladder up to another loft with a single mattress. In addition there was a full bath and a kitchenette with a sink, fridge and microwave. However, we opted to make dinner out on the picnic table outside the cabin since it was a lovely day and the view was wonderful.
Before we arrived, our host Mike asked if we would like his wife to bake us biscuits in the morning. What a nice touch! Mike’s wife delivered the biscuits along with butter and jam in a wicker basket the next morning. The biscuits were still warm! That was just the perfect ending to our wonderful stay at the cabin.
(RB)