12/12/2018
After a busy three days in Rock Island we drove 189 miles to Hannibal Missouri. Hannibal is known as the home of Mark Twain. We stayed at the Mark Twain Cave Campground. The cave has been open for tours since 1886. Mark Twain wrote about the cave in 5 of his books. Jesse James used it as a hideout in 1879 after robbing a bank.
We toured the Mark Twain Boyhood Museum and the homes of Becky Thatcher, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. We attended a Mark Twain reenactment. The actor was really good. I visited a private car collection I discovered on a side street downtown.
Hannibal MO photos
Our next stop was Sundermeier RV Park outside of St.Louis, MO. Of course we visited the Gateway Arch and Museum. We learned how the Arch was constructed. We took a step on guide of St.Louis as well as a guided bus tour and visited the National Great Rivers Museum. We had a nice tour of the Budweiser Brewery including plenty of free beer. We visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens. The gardens are beautiful. There is a beautiful mansion on the grounds built for the original superintendent. We saw a corpse flower in bloom. They only bloom once every seven to ten years. The bloom is seven to ten feet tall.
Judy and Natalie took a long walk to see the Japanese Garden. They said it was really beautiful.
St.Louis photos
From St.Louis we traveled to Cape Girardeau MO. for two days. We saw the Cape Rock Lookout and had a pot luck lunch. The following day we drove 213 miles to Memphis, Tennessee. We spent 3 days (day 21 through day 24) in the Graceland RV Park right next door to Graceland. We toured the original Sun Studio where Elvis made his first recording. We learned the history of Sun Studios. We then went to the Peabody Hotel to see the famous Peabody Ducks come out of the elevator, waddle down the red carpet and climb into the fountain in the lobby. You can google Peabody Ducks to get the history. We visited St.Jude Hospital (where Danny Thomas and his wife Rose are buried) then walked up and down Beale Street and had lunch at BB Kings. We had a camp cookout on the second day and the following day we walked to Graceland where we had VIP tickets to tour all the facilities. Elvis's home had different displays from the last time we visited. There is now new Elvis Presley Complex across the street with lots of nice displays including his cars and many outfits.
Memphis photos
Leaving Memphis we drove 241 miles to Vicksburg Louisiana. We stayed at the AmeriStar RV Park which is at the AmeriStar Casino. This is a very large casino which of course we had to visit. We had a great bus tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park. This is the site where the battle of Vicksburg took place. The have the locations marked where the troops were during the battle. It was interesting to see how close to each other the Union Troops and the Confederate Troops were. It was a great tour.
From the Park we drove past the murals along the waterfront. We then had a good lunch at the Antebellum Mansion followed by a self guided tour. We finished the day with a tour of the Lower Mississippi River Museum.
Vicksburg photos
We were scheduled to stop at Natchez Trace Louisiana next but the RV park had been struck by lightning and their entire electrical system was destroyed. So the decision was made by the wagon master to go on to New Orleans for an extra two days. So we drove 258 miles to New Orleans.
Well i will finish the story later this week.
Dick and Judy
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