June 19, 2013: La Grange, MO to Forest City, IA

The plan was to drive north in Missouri to Keokuk, cross back east over to Illinois and go up the exceptionally scenic stretch of The Great River Road to Nauvoo, but as soon as we crossed the River, there were detour signs.  Probably more flooding.  So we took an inland route north to Nauvoo, passing an interesting front yard with old gas tanks.

 

Nauvoo is where Joseph Smith and his Mormon followers fled Missouri after the governor signed an extermination order. The Mormons built the town here from 6,500 to 20,00 over a few years and ran it as a theocracy with their own courts, militia, schools, etc.  Non-Mormon neighbors became incensed when disagreements had to be heard in Mormon courts where they questioned the fairness of judgments and eventually violence erupted.   

There was also a schism in the LDS church beginning with Joseph Smith's adoption of polygamy and other issues.  The problems escalated and Joseph Smith and his brother were jailed in a nearby Illinois town where a mob assaulted the jail and lynched them.  Most of the inhabitants of Nauvoo followed Brigham Young west to Salt Lake City.  The LDS church as done massive restoration and reconstruction of the historic district as it was n the 1840's.  The original $1,000,000 temple was reconstructed exactly as the original in the same spot.  We took a horse drawn carriage ride to get an understanding of the story and the town.  We were impressed with the determination, courage and faith of the Nauvoo people.

We drove the rest of the day to northern Iowa to the Winnebago plant in Forest City to have a few things repaired.  They have electrical hookups, so we stayed right there and were in line at 7am when they opened to sign up for the earliest available service.  We were lucky to have them look at it the same morning and we spent the day in their comfortable waiting area, returning to the campground for the evening to await a part scheduled to arrive the next morning.

June 18, 2013: Bowling Green, MO to Hannibal, MO

Cool, dry and a crystal blue sky this Golf Day!

  A short drive north on The River Road, with some neat rural scenes and an occasional glimpse of the broad Mississippi, we arrived in Hannibal, boyhood home of Mark Twain.

 

 

 

We had visited here a few years ago and it was fun to drive around the small historic district and reminisce. 

After driving twenty minutes on dirt roads, we arrived at the public golf course, which looked surprisingly nice considering we were in the backwoods somewhere, only our GPS knew where..
The greens were in great condition, but the first nine holes were fairly new and a bit boring.  The back nine was older and had lots of trees (unfortunately for a few of Jack's drives) and personality. 

Have you noticed yet that I have not mentioned how we scored?  Unfortunately, the humidity began to build and by the time we finished at 3pm, thunderstorms were threatening.  Right during my backswing on #16, a series of three huge booms exploded.  At first, I thought it was the beginning of big thunderclap, but it was a lot louder and deeper.  When we returned to the clubhouse, Jack found it had been a sonic boom and its accompanying echoes, made by a jet. 

We stayed in a nice state park with a campsite on a small lake a half hour north of Hannibal in a small town called La Grange.  It is a pretty spot with cottonwood puffs drifting about and mama and papa geese strutting about with their little ones in tow. 

Score?  What score?

June 17, 2013 Pere Marquette State Park, IL to Granite City, IL to Bowling Green, MO

Yesterday, we drove through a gorgeous stretch of Mississippi riverfront, but did not stop at any of the small towns for photos because we wanted to get to the campground early enough to watch the Open.  Today, we returned south along The River to do some exploring.  Before we left Pere Marquette State Park, though, we drove a narrow scenic road in the Park to a number of lookouts on the top of the ridge.  Unfortunately, these viewpoints are only scenic in winter when the leaves are off the trees.  This is prime winter eagle viewing territory, so the overlooks are for bird-watching.  I did get one photo of the flooded, muddy river in the distance.

We stopped in the small town of Grafton with lots of restaurants, bars and a marina for the St. Louis weekend crowd, but it was deserted on this Monday morning, except for flood clean-up crews.

 

We could see high water marks on the sides of buildings and their road next to the river was gone. 

End of the road

Their entire ballfield was under water and a house sat in the middle of the river, with no way to get to it except by boat.  

 
 

The homes that did escape damage we on the tallest stilts I have ever seen.

 

 A little further south we came upon the quaint village of Elsah that was a real step back in time. This hamlet had been mostly cut off from the world until 1965 when the River Road was built. Beautiful stone cottages with amazing gardens, picture perfect churches and an old time school.

 

 

We continued southeast along the river near St. Louis to check out the Lewis and Clark historical site. It had a short film and exhibits about the team wintering here preparing for their amazing journey to the Pacific. 

Although they have an area where you can view the confluence of the Mighty Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, it was flooded, so we went a 1/2 mile up the road to the Confluence Tower. The tower gives a bird's eye view of the confluence as well as the incredible flooding. Friday night trivia buffs, listen up: The Missouri is longer than the Mississippi, runs faster and carries more silt. We were told that you can still see the Missouri waters more than a mile downstream from the confluence because of the different color due to the higher silt content.

 

 

 



The water to the first tree line is all flooded farm fields.  the Mississippi is on the right between the trees, while the Missouri is coming from the far right.

Confluence of Mississippi and Missouri



View from the top at the parking lot with our RV

We drove west on the interstate around St. Louis and stopped at a rest area to have some lunch.  We saw this is the dog walking area... !



His pooper scooper was a big bucket!

We drove north to Bowling Green, Missouri to a campground with guaranteed good internet service. Yeah!

While watching the news, we found that we must have been under a silver-lined cloud because much of the St. Louis area experienced drenching rains, flash floods and a lot of street flooding, but somehow all we saw was a little drizzle.  Planning a tourist day off tomorrow to play some golf in Hannibal,Missouri, home of Mark Twain.

June 16, 2013: Baldwin, Illinois to Cahokia Mounds to St. Louis to Grafton, Illinois

Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there. 

We left our still-empty campground and headed north to the Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site in Illinois, just outside of St. Louis.  Between 1000 and 1400 AD, this area had been a thriving city of 10,000 people who built huge mounds for burial sites and for their royalty to build houses upon.  They abandoned the site in the 1400s, probably due to a lack of natural resources.  As they cut the trees down for their massive 20,000 trunk stockade fence, building homes and burning wood for cooking, their primary meat food source (deer) would have moved further and further from the area.  Removing all trees would have contributed to erosion and the repetitive planting of corn would have depleted the land of nutrients, making food an increasingly difficult problem.  No one knows where these people went and scientists are prohibited by law from disturbing Native American graves so they cannot obtain DNA to determine which, if any, of the current tribes descended from these early people.

We climbed the 100 foot highest mound and could see the St. Louis skyline in the hazy distance.  We spent time in the visitor center that had excellent displays of this early culture, including many artifacts from the archaeological digs in the area.

Lots and lots of steps to get to the top

 

Afterwards, we headed into St. Louis right past the Arch (which we had visited on previous trips) to find a famous ice cream place that calls their specialty "concrete" because it is so thick.  Huge crowds and long lines assured us that it was worth the trip into downtown St. Louis to find the place.

We drove north out of St. Louis across both the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to an Illinois state park campground.  Our route took us along the Mississippi River where we could see the massive flooding that had taken place recently. 

Sandbags protecting a building in Alton, IL

We passed the famous Piasa bird that Marquette had documented when he came through the area on his way to exploring the Great Lakes.  The original drawing on the bluff walls are long gone, but folks have recreated it based on reported accounts of the Indian folktale.

The campground was nice and Jack got to watch the last of the Open, but no phone or internet.  We are so spoiled.

June 15, 2013 Cape Giardeau North on the Great River Road to Baldwin, Illinois

After leaving the campground, we drove north to the Trail of Tears State Park on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River.  The park has a wonderful visitor center documenting the "Great American Shame" of forcibly relocating 16,000 Cherokee Indians from the lush farming valleys and good hunting grounds of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia to the arid lands of Oklahoma.  Andrew Jackson was responsible for the policy that relocated all Native Americans to the western Indian Territories from east of the Mississippi to increase the land available to white men.  The removal took place over the winter and between 4,000 and 5,000 people died of cold and disease. This was one one of several routes that relocated Seminole from Florida, Creek and Chickasaw from Alabama, and Choctaw from Mississippi.

I walked a shady trail in the State Park through the woods one mile to a lookout on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.  A warm, humid day made for hazy views, but it was still a spectacular look at the still flooded muddy river with a massive barge plowing upstream.

Looking south

Northbound barge



Unhealthy-looking turtle I encountered on the trail..

We backtracked south to Cape Giardeau to cross The River back to Illinois to follow The Great River Road north through Illinois.  Although marked as scenic on my map, there was not much to see other than cornfields, which are common everywhere in rural Illinois.  The last town designated in the scenic route was the village of Chester.  In the center of town was a little park celebrating Chester as the home of Popeye, born to author Elzie Segar in his daily comic strip, Thimble Theatre.  OK, Friday night trivia aficionados, we now have this critical information for any future Popeye-related questions.

 

 

 

 

Trivia Question-whose last name was Opdyke?

 

 

After a short photo session, we walked across the street for an ice cream cone and met a 60 plus year old man bicycling from Virginia to Oregon!  His wife was accompanying him in an RV and they meet up every couple of days.  Chester was his planned stop for the night and he was calling the police to ask if he could sleep in the park.  Wow!

 

We continued north to a little farm hamlet for a campground with full hookups behind a small, but well-kept motel.  The campground had room for about 40 RVs, but we were the only ones there.  We theorized that the place is for seasonal farm workers - why else so much space in an area where there are no tourist or scenic attractions?  Another hot and humid night and we are thankful to have air conditioning, but it is noisy and are looking forward to some cooler nights.

 

 

June 14, 2013 Land Between the Lakes to Metropolis, IL to Cairo, IL to Cape Giardeau, MO

Slept wonderfully to the nighttime insect and tree frog symphony with temps in the 60's.  We woke to a clear, beautiful morning.  Coffee and breakfast watching fishermen heading out.  I inflated the kayak and Jack and I paddled out of our cove to the main part of the lake and around the shoreline, enjoying the turtles and great blue herons.  We retured to sit lakeside, planned the day,and then I took the boat out again for 1/2 hour.

Later in the morning, the appearance of large sailboats told me quickly that the wind had picked up, so no more kayaking today. Jack is anxious to get internet access and I need to do laundry, so I dried the boat and packed it up while Jack had his lunch and nap.
 We left Land Between the Lakes and headed northwest to Metropolis, Illinois -- yes, THE metropolis, hometown of Superman, and I have the photos to prove it!.  Plus, DC Comics made it official in 1972. 

 

After our quick photo op, we backtracked southwest to Cairo, Illinois (pronounced Kay-ro), where the Ohio River joins the Mighty Mississippi at the southern tip of Illinois. 

 My travel book cautioned that Cairo was an old, downtrodden town, but I wanted to see the place where Jim and Huck were heading from Hannibal so they could paddle up the Ohio River to freedom.  Samuel Clemens also talked about Cairo in Life on the Mississippi because of it's sometimes difficult navigation with the twists and turns and merging currents of the two rivers.  Even though he praised the town, my guidebook was right about the place today.  Sad and decrepit, most buildings boarded up, business closed.  After another quick photo stop at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on land that used to be Fort Defiance, we again headed northwest to Cape Giardeau across the Mississippi in Missouri.

Our tv and internet withdrawal symptoms had been escalating, so I made sure we had a campground with both. It did not work out as planned because our own MIFI from Virgin Mobile had no internet coverage and the campground's internet was excruciatingly slow.  Luckily, the tv worked and we were able to get NBC so Jack could watch the Open.

June 13, 2013: Paducah

We had some errands to run and the stores we needed were in nearby Paducah, Kentucky, about 1/2 hour away.  While we were there, I wanted to see the National Quilt Museum and the Flood Wall Murals.  Just as we were getting ready to set out, a cute bird came to investigate our side view mirror.



Apparently, he likes what he sees

The quilt museum was jaw-dropping spectacular.  Most hangings were art quilts, but there was one exhibition area that was traditional log cabin quilts which are made of small blocks that build around the center.  These were unique because they were two-sided with different patterns on each side.  How they kept track of all those little blocks of color to create two different designs at the same time is mind-boggling.  Jack's favorite was a waving American Flag that from a short distance looked just like a specialty-lit painting.  My favorite was a Wisteria Tiffany window that looked exactly like a back-lit stained glass window.  Unfortunately, photos of any kind were not allowed.  I am definitely inspired to try some quilting when we return home in the Fall.

We made a quick stop at the flood wall murals.  The massive concrete flood wall to hold back the Ohio River during high flood waters in downtown Paducah were covered with about 30 lifesize murals painted by a renowned mural painter.  The murals showed the history of Paducah and each mural was a true work of art by itself, but it stretched as far a you could see, and it was awesome.

The high water measure is on the far left side of the wall

We finished our errands around suppertime and returned to our lakeside campsite to enjoy a beautiful evening watching the sunset on the lake.