Saint Louis, Missouri

Our final few days were spend in another Kentucky State Park near where the Tennessee River has been dammed creating a huge natural lake. There were few other people in the enormous campground and the weather continued its ultra hot days with temps in the mid nineties (  36c).

On one day we visited the nearby town of Paducah near where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi River. Along the banks are a lovely series of frescoes painted on walls depicting the founding of Paducah. A quiet town whose lively past is but an echo in the corridors of time.

The Ohio River is much bigger than the Mississippi River where the rivers join at Cairo just downstream from Paducah, but the Mississippi is the longer and wins the race for naming rights.

Then it was on again. This time up river and into Missouri State and our destination of Saint Louis where we were meeting up with Mary who we had spent time with last year in North Carolina, but whose home town is Saint Louis. The most famous landmark in the mid West is the Saint Louis Arch. And it is AWESOME. So much higher, so much more beautiful than we had been expecting. You can ride a small 'train' up to the top and at 630 Ft or 192m the views are great, though everything is a little cramped at the viewing area.

To give you an idea of scale just look at the bottom of the Arch and note the people there.

Then it was on to the beautiful Missouri Botanical Gardens where they were holding a Chinese Lantern Festival. The grounds are lovely and full of interesting collections of plants.

In the evening we dined with a friend of Mary's called Sharon at a lovely restaurant on 'The Hill', the old Italian section of Saint Louis.

Next day we visited more of Saint Louis. It is a modern city with a strong focus on the arts and culture. It is also the headquarters for Budweiser Beer. But we chose to visit a smaller craft maker of beer called Schlafly. After a nice lunch, we joined a tour of the brewery and finished off with extensive sampling of their various brews.

But alas we had to leave Saint Louis. A lovely city made all the better for the knowledgeable guided tour by Mary. We left on a stinking hot day and headed North again to Hannibal, Missouri. This is the hometown of Mark Twain, the celebrated author of Tom Sawyer. The town was sleepy quiet in the oven like heat, but we saw the statue of Tom Sawyer and Huckelberry Finn and then walked around

town to the boyhood home of Mark Twain which has the famous white-washed picket fence outside it.

Tomorrow we leave Missouri and head North into Iowa. We are already on the edge of the Great Plains. Nothing but flat fields covered in corn and grass for  hundreds of miles to the West before the great Rockies loom up.

Descent into Darkness

On our last night in Memphis, we decided to eat out at a local restaurant renowned for its southern cuisine. So we called them up and they sent a pink limo to collect us.




We had Memphis style baby back pork ribs to share between us with the usual trimmin's, with music by Elvis playing in the background.

The next day we drove through Tennessee past rich rolling farm lands with cattle and much more agricultural than we've seen in most of the states before. We had definitely left the south of the USA. You could tell it by the forests the green grass and the different style of architecture. We crossed over the border into Kentucky and headed to the area of Kentucky called Land between the Lakes. A huge man-made damming of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers repeated to be the largest man-made lake in the world.

Our destination was Lake Barkley State Park which we arrived in late in the afternoon. We found our campsite in a very wooded area surrounded by pine trees that made it extremely difficult to back into. Not the best site, but quiet.





There was lots of wildlife around and we saw a Whitetail deer, eating not far away from our fifth wheel. We stayed a few days and then moved on to Mammoth Cave National Park and stayed in probably the best campground we have stayed in the USA at Nolin Lake State Park. (and one of the cheapest)

Over the next two days we visited Mammoth Cave the largest cave system in the world with over 400 miles of passageways that have been found.

We went on two tours that were offered. The first was the Historic tour which was a two mile walk through quite dry areas of the cave. The second tour had more spectacular features including the famous Niagara Falls as well as the most amazing entrance down a narrow chimney from the side of a hill.





Perhaps not the most spectacular caves we have been to, but certainly the most extensive. To get to the caves we had to cross by a ferry over the Green River, a tributary of the Ohio River.





Then there was one last state park in Kentucky for a few days near the northern border at Paducah. We leave here on Thursday and head to St Louis, Missouri, some 230 miles away, a long drive for us.

The weather has cooled a bit from the deep south. Mid eighties now rather than mid nineties, but the days are getting hotter, but we are also moving northwards so they are balancing each other out.

The Birth and Death of Elvis Presley

We enjoyed our brief stay in Jackson, Mississippi. That is until Wendy was attacked. 

While walking over to the swimming pool she was attacked by a group of suspicious black

fire ants. They have left huge blisters on her feet and much pain. 

So we continued up the Natchez Trace through mile after mile of lovely scenery. The Trace is a continuous road with no intersections, traffic lights and no commercial traffic allowed. 440 miles of great easy driving. We pulled off at Tupelo, Mississippi and spent a few days there. Famous as the birth place of Elvis Presley we walked around the two room shack where he was born in 1938.  

Then it was onto Memphis, Tennessee just over the border from Mississippi State. We stayed right in the Graceland Complex. But thunderstorms were heading our way. Our first real rain in weeks and weeks. So we decided to visit downtown Memphis First and caught a free shuttle into town where we visited the Museum of the Mississippi River  on Mud Island and then walked to the Peabody Hotel for the daily March of the Ducks which has been going on every day for over 50 years. In a fountain in the main foyer merrily swim 5 ducks. At 11am every morning they are escorted down from their Penthouse suite to the pool and then at 5pm when we were there they are escorted back again.

After the 'performance' we walked onto the musical heart of Memphis and perhaps the world - Beale St. It's a bit like Bourbon St, New Orleans on a smaller scale. A bit more music than Bourbon St but very touristy. We had dinner in the iconic Blues Club - BB Kings Blues Club. Where over a meal of fried pickles and fried chicken we listened to the Santini Jazz Band playing modern jazz. I guess you would call it rock jazz and is the style that seems very popular in New Orleans and Beale St.  The guitars are the primary instrument rather than older style jazz in which the piano, trumpet or saxophone were dominant.

Today we walked over to Graceland and toured the very touristy home of Elvis Presley. In between the rafts of gifts shops there were a few exhibits such as his personal airplane and cars. But the real centerpiece is the house which he bought when he was 22 and died in when he was  42 from heart failure brought on by overtaking prescription drugs. The pool room below is a typical room  in the tour of the house.

 Elvis is buried in the memorial garden along with his parents.

This week we continue our march North and we leave Tennessee and spend a week or so in Kentucky.