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GRANITEVILLE, Mo. — Ok, where's this Dumbo?

Nature provides humans with grand sights, some as simple as rocks. Big rocks. Ginormous, rounded rocks that resemble elephants.

At 27 feet tall, 35 feet long and weighing in at 680 tons, Dumbo is the premeir pachyderm of Elephant Rocks State Parks, where 1.5 billions years of erosion created a stand of giant boulders. At the highest point of the park that is encircled by the paved, mile-long Braille Trail, boulders are lined up like a train of circus elephants.

"This place is pretty remarkable," said Chad Ramsey, a U.S. Marine on leave from Camp Pendleton. He hiked, climbed and got rained on in the park with his wife, two children and mother-in-law. "I was here once as a kid. It's pretty awesome."

The park in Arcadia Valley of the Missouri Ozarks is one of two red granite natural areas in the country. It has some of the best-known examples of spheroidal granite boulders, created through a unique weathering process.

Owned by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the seven-acre Elephant Rock Natural Area got its start as molten lava in the Precambrian era. The magma cooled to form red granite rock, and as overlying rock eroded, cracks developed and created angular blocks. Water permeated the fractures and rounded the edges underground. Further erosion eventually exposed the rock.

A quarry near the park opened in 1869 and furnished stone for buildings as far away as St. Louis, 80 miles north. Facing stone for the Eads Bridge piers crossing the Mississippi River and paving blocks for St. Louis streets and leevee came from the quarry.

Families can cook out, climb and collapse at 30 picnic areas, some in the shadow of a wall of boulders. Parents have a tough time stopping the kids from venturing up into the formations, and many of them tire after chasing kids down for a photo.

The Ramseys had a picture day. At almost every other boulder, Chad and Tera set up their kids and clicked away. The kids got away occassionally to explore the pathways cut through the stone. As threatening clouds approached, the family stopped near Dumbo to take in the view from the top.

On Dumbo and the circus line of elephants, they noticed the carvings from the late 1800s that gave the names of those who took a chisel and hammer there. As a working quarry at the time, it was plenty.

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For more information on Elephant Rocks State Park, Click here.