Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Sorry, catching up

Sorry about the delay.  I have no excuses because the internet has been great everywhere we have stayed.  I guess I just got tired of writing.  It is hard to have a one way conversation.  One needs, I guess I need, some feedback now and then.

I will try and catch you up.

Motorhome go fixed and is working great.  It is surprising how much we really missed that space.   
 This is a pic of the guys in the compartment welding the bracket that held the motor to the slide out.  I know you don't see much.  I sent Rog out to get some pix, meaning more than one, and he got this one.  I would have been in the other compartment door looking in at the dude saying could you hold the torch a bit lower I'm doing a blog and my peeps need to see what's happening.  LOL  

They did a great job and we are so happy. 

   We then hit the road in the morning heading West.  We took the back roads to avoid the toll roads.  They are very expensive and they are so rough.  The back road are better, some what, but you do not make good time because they go through small towns and you have to slow down a lot.  

  We got the rig fixed in Indiana then headed south through Indiana.  Got bored with south so turned west toward Illinois.  LOL  We just blow through Illinois and did not stay there.

   
Here we are approaching the Mississippi River.  You can see the bridge in the distance.
    Going over.  You can see the railroad bridge.
   The official state line.  We are now in Missouri. 

   And now the fancy "welcome you" sign a little past the real border.

   We decided to stay in some of the Corp of Engineer campgrounds on the way west.  This one is on the Mark Twain Lake.  These pix of us kayaking are not on the Mark Twain Lake because the water was very low and the banks were very rocky.  The boat ramps were so steep it would have been impossible to take the kayaks up and down.  So we found nearby South Lake and it was great.  So we have now kayaked Missouri.   
  Rog getting ready to go in.
Rog in the lake.

     
This is a log house that is located in the place where Samuel Clemens was born.  I do not know why a log house when the house he was born in was a wood framed one below.

 

This house was moved not too far away in the Mark Twain State Park and is located in a building along with a museum and library.  We did not go in.

  
 A plague in Florida Mo. in honor of the man.

Florida, Mo., a settlement of about 60 families and several businesses, had two streets, each a couple of hundred yards long; the rest of the avenues mere lanes, with rail fences and cornfields on either side.  Both the streets and lanes were paved with the same material-tough black mud in wet times, deep dust in dry.

Florida reached its zenith before the Civil War.  During this time, one of the general stores was briefly owned by John Marshall Clemens, Mark Twain's father. 

The Clemens family, consisting of John Marshall and his wife Jane, and their four children arrived in the small village of Florida Mo., late in June 1835.  They had made the long trip by riverboat and wagon all the way from Tenn.  After arriving in Florida, John Clemens rented a two-room frame house where Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born (two months premature) in November.

In his later life Samuel Clemens moved to Hartford Conn. with his family.  We also did a drive by of that home.

We spent a couple of nights at this campground.  While here I was able to drop off a wheelchair lap robe at a Missouri nursing home.



   
The country is so pretty with crops growing and the grasses swaying in the wind.  We had lots of rain and gray skies, but a nice trip all in all.  The trains were running in full force.  




   Getting ready to cross the Missouri River, another big one.  
   Here we go.

   The Missouri River. 

   We stopped at a little park long the road and along comes not one, but two trains while we ate lunch.  This also happens to be the original site of the Atchison terminus of the west to east rail.
Atchison was the original eastern terminus of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. 

  Atchison was the birthplace of aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

 
We hit the road, US 36 and headed for Kansas and another Corp of Engineer campground on Perry Lake.  We found a site and stayed here for two nights.  It rained the whole time we were here.

  
On our way out of the campground we saw geese, a whole flock.

  
And deer.  With the early morning light and over cast skies and a broken camera I did not get very good pix.  But this one is interesting in that the fawn is moving out to get to mom.



I was not quick enough to get a pix of the sign and Rog would not back up (LOL) but this is the first section of interstate highway opened in the United States.  Did you know this Tom?
   We have arrived at our second destination in Kansas.  We are staying at Lake Wilson, Kansas at another Corp of Engineer campground.

 
 This is a great campground.  It is very windy here so hoping to get in some kayaking.   Thought we might go in the first night, but would not be fun in the wind.  So we looked up the weather and it is suppose to be windy every day we are here, so that said, we are going to go out in the morning when it is the least breezy.  

   It is day break and I am out in the kayak, so now Kansas is done. 
   Rog getting ready to go out.  You can see that the sun is just coming up.  We only put in one kayak because it was difficult to get them in, it was windy and not fun for any length of time, and we have to do Kansas.  
   It is very shallow as you can see Rog going out a long way just to float the boat. 

    Rog is finally in and paddling.  

   He is done.  Kansas is done.





No comments:

Post a Comment