In this video, we head down to the St. Francois Mountains and spend Labor Day Weekend camping at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, then we get out and actually explore the Shut-Ins on the Castor River. I share what makes this place so unique—those rock structures really do feel like a jungle gym in the water. It’s one of those classic Missouri swimming-hole spots, but it’s also a state park where everybody can come enjoy it. After that, we pop over to Elephant Rocks State Park, which is only about 15 minutes down the road, and it ended up being a huge highlight for our kids. We climb around on these massive 1.5 billion-year-old granite boulders (seriously, the size of elephants), and I show the easiest way to see the rocks—the almost one-mile Braille Trail that’s meant for all people. To wrap up the day-trip portion, we roll into the historic town of Caledonia and stop at The Old Village Mercantile for some unique hot dogs and hand-dipped ice cream. I tried the Monte Cristo dog (swiss cheese, strawberry jam, powdered sugar) and even an apple “cheese dog” specialty—both were surprisingly really good.