Puma Campground — Mark Twain State Park

    We stopped here on our way home & stayed 2 nights. Friday & Saturday. It was busy & most sites were full in the Puma loop. This is the electric loop with the very nice, clean bathrooms & showers. There's no water at each site, but there's water scattered throughout the campground. 

    There are good sites scattered all over. 74 & 76 had a small view of the lake through the vegetation. There are no sites on the lake. Site 70 was pretty nice. Shady, with a wooded view in back. Close to the bathrooms, secluded from the neighbors but of course you can still hear them!

  Aside from the elderly couple in the handicapped site across the road leaving their LED lights on all night everyone was respectful.

    The other 2 loops are more separated. They share a bathroom/shower that's on the main road. There was no one at the gatehouse around 5pm, which I would have thought was odd before covid. State park camping has changed since then. The camp host came around & checked us in. She was pretty busy the whole weekend. I never did see any employees at the gatehouse at any time of day.

    So, this is a very nice state park, but aside from the campground, boating & fishing is the main draw. There's a swimming beach we didn't check out. There's only 3 trails. Buzzards Roost is a picnic area with a shelter & a scenic overlook.

     Florida isn't far if you wanted to check out the birthplace museum (free on a Saturday morning)  & Hannibal is about a 1/2 hour away with tons of things to do. Lots of restaurants & shops.

Campground Review:

Mark Twain state Park is an absolute blast. approximately 30 minutes from Hannibal MO this park sits on Mark Twain Lake. Several hiking trails in the area will get you in touch with nature and an abundance of deer. Large playgrounds in the camping area's as well as visitor center areas. All loops in this park have electric and basic sites. No water hookups aside from host sites. Best part is all shower houses fairly new. We never located any vault toilets but found all three loops had their own shower house.

Park has a boat ramp with ample parking and if you have better luck than I did a fish cleaning station. While having a boat ramp close may be a deterrent it was rare to have much boat noise with the tall trees surrounding these large private sites. 

We stayed in site 76 in puma loop which was a sloping site but it was massive. The lots on either side of ours were similar in layout but much more level. 76 also has a path to the waterfront which we utilized daily.

It rained on us for most of our stay we found Mark twain state park to be well worth the trip. 

Product Review:

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time- today I am testing the GCI Outdoors Master Cook Station. 

While looking at GCIOutdoors.com for the right item for my family to try out we were amazed at the function of their site.  We were able to compare multiple items flawlessly and despite  much debate locate an item we believed may reduce our overall need to pack everything including the kitchen sink. The cook station didn't immediately jump off the page for my wife. She had her heart set on a new rocker chair of which GCI Outdoors has an amazing selection. However, I was able to win her over after pointing out the endless options the Master Cook Station (AKA My Kitchen) Offers.

My Kitchen provides functionality as a table, a cook top, a drying rack, food storage, and does so taking up the same amount of space as a folding chair. Our first night in camp the dreaded dinner bell began ringing and my loving wife walked over to our new kitchen. After cooking, plating, and eating from this beast she looked at me and said, "Never again will I doubt your decision making about anything." (or at least thats how I remember it.) She actual was really impressed how this cook station had taking the stress out of meal time. With a built in sink we were able to cook, eat, and clean from a singular location and when done we could either fold it up and tuck it away or use it for evening activities. 

As a pop up camper space is always limited and at a premium. The GCI Outdoor Master Cook Station not only met our expectations it surpassed them. This swiss army table will be a must have among all of our friends and the high quality of this product tells me that we will get to show it off for quite some time.