Day 68 Pittsburg, KS to St Joseph ,MO +191 miles

Kansas state flower is the Wild Sunflower.  We saw many of them along the highway.

Pittsburg, KS was a coal mining area.  The coal was mined in pits that have been left and have filled with water.

At a rest stop near Kansas City there was a semi truck load of piglets.  We talked to the driver to learn where he was transporting baby pigs.  When the piglets are old enough to be separated from their mothers they are put in a nursery where they spend about a week to make sure they can eat regular pig food.  Then they are transported to a "finisher" or "Hog Confine" where they spend the next 7 months growing to 250#.  You know what happens next.  Along the way we saw what a 'hog confine" looks like.  It is a big climate controlled barn.  Hogs don't have sweat glands so the barns keep them cool.  Hog raising is big business in Iowa.

On to St Joseph, MO.  We visited the Patee House Museum.  This is a beautiful sleigh but I also liked the license plates since we have been collecting fabric ones.  Haven't been stopping at quilt shops any more because the Row by Row Experience is over. 

Beautiful lace.  How do they keep track?

Some of the Wagenblast family came west to Oregon on a wagon train that left from St Joseph, MO  

St. Joseph,MO is also the beginning of the Pony Express

Day 67 8673 miles, 3 more states on the map

On our drive through the country we saw many chicken houses.  We have seen lots in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas.

Once again we are historic route 66

Last night Gary put on Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  As you see the only state left is Nebraska.  That will have to wait 2 more days.  Tonight we are back into Missouri, will go to St Joseph to see where the Pony Express started as well as many wagon trains.  Then we will follow the trail all across Nebraska.

Marshfield, MO

On the way to Marshfield we stopped off at Mansfield, home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the famed children's author of the Little House on the Prairie books.  Very interesting museum and houses.  Our first clue of how tiny a woman she was, was seeing some of her dresses in the museum.  Then along the way we found this cut out of her.  Once again no photos allowed in the museum or houses so mostly our memories.

We arrived at the RV park in Marshfield where Candy's sister and family live.  Her sister Joyce, 2nd from right, came to the RV park and took us to their farm where we met her 2 daughters, Janell and Shelly.  Garnet posed with the "girls".  

Here is Joyces grandson Jackson.  

Once again we were warned to be cautious on these hilly narrow farm roads.  

We saw several buggies.  When you have to go slowly behind them it gives you a chance to get a photo.  the photo I wish I could have gotten was the horse and buggy tied to the hitching post at McDonalds.

Saturday we went to nearby Seymour, MO to their Apple Festival.  Candy's family are conservative Republicans and are campaigning for their party.  They built this float for the parade.  Gary and Rich are conversing while Joyce is busy getting everything ready.

Rich walked with the float throwing out candy to the children along the route.

We drove route 66 to Springfield.  The draw there was the Bass Pro Shop.  Having never been to 1 I thought it would be just another sportmans shop.  How wrong I was.  It had amazing fish ponds and taxidermy displays.

Once again, look at the ceiling.

Day 63 Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri

In the center of the map is Cairo, Illinois.  We crossed a bridge over the Ohio River, into Illinois.  A mile later we crossed a bridge over the Mississippi River into Missouri.  In Paducah the Tennessee River flows into the Ohio River.  Only 34 miles later the Ohio flows into the Mississippi at Cairo.  

Here we are at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  There was a great park here where we learned about the area.  Lewis and Clark stayed here in Nov. 1803 on their trip west.  This area was also Fort Defiance where the Union army amassed during the Civil War.  Today there is lots of river traffic.  We saw pleasure boats, fishing boats and lots of barges.

Looking back at the first bridge we crossed over the Ohio River.  This tug boat has a raft of barges, 5 barges wide and 5 barges long.  Most of the barges are full of corn and soy beans.  Gary talked with a man whose job was to determine the weight of the product in the loaded barge.  There is a scale marked on the side of the barge.  He would recorded the draft when the barge was empty and the draft of the barge when it was full.  The difference is the weight of the product.  EUREKA says Archimedes.

We spent the day driving in the Ozark Mountains. As you can see, they are tree covered hills.  Nice country.   Here we are driving into a storm.  We parked at the Ozark Mountain Springs RV park near Mountain View, MO. and the park hosts suggested the guys get parked while the women did the registration so as to get hooked up before the rain started.  Well, didn't quite work out.  Rich was still at the registration office so gave Garnet, Candy and I a ride to our rigs.  We all got soaked getting from the truck to the rigs even with the coat Gary brought me.  It was hot so needed to get the AC running.  Once we got inside and somewhat dried off, we watched the lightning, listened to the thunder and watched rain coming down like we had never seen before.  This is the remnant of tropical storm Newton which came in from the Pacific over Baja and Tuscon.  Rooneys 5th wheel sprang a leak in the roof since the last rain and they discovered water running into their unit.  The storm couldn't get over soon enough for them.  When we arrived at Candys sisters the next day she explained that we had experienced what they call here a "Toad Strangler".

Day 62 Paducah Kentucky

Today was a nice drive to Paducah, Kentucky.  Paducah is home to the National Quilt Museum so Garnet and I were looking forward to spending some time there.  On the morning drive through farm country we came upon 4 barn quilts.  They come up so fast when you are driving 50 miles per hour that I don't have photos of all of them but they are in my memory.  We saw warning signs to be watchful for Amish horse and buggies.  The only buggies we saw were parked in barns.
After lunch Garnet, Candy and I went to the quilt museum.  Sadly, no photography due to copy write laws.  Beautiful quilts and fine handwork.   The Paducah Quilt Show is a premier show in the US. The museum has purchased many of the quilts that won their class at the show over the past 25 years.  We saw the best of the best.  Afterwards we went to Hancocks of Paducah, a quilt fabric store on steroids, like no other.  The selection is beyond compare and the prices are below that we pay at the local quilt shops at home.

Day 61, Mammoth Cave 7791 miles

We had a nice drive in Kentucky and saw 2 barn quilts along the freeway.

Mammoth Cave is not just 1 small cave but is over 400 miles of passageways.  They are on several elevations, but interconnect.  We walked about 3/4 of a mile, 500 stairs.  It was very enjoyable.

It was difficult to photograph because no flash was allowed.

Nashville

We spent the last 3 days in Nashville.  We started our visit by going down town.  We found that this being Labor Day weekend, it was a very popular place.  The streets and bars were crowded.  There weren't any concerts to attend and the Grand Old Opry was sold out.  The way to find music to listen to is to go into the bars.  They all have live music.  It took some looking but finally we were to find music we enjoyed in a place where we could find a seat.  

You can see how crowded it was.  People hanging off the balconies.

Downtown buildings, "Batman" building and "R2D2"

We enjoyed a walk around the atrium at the Opyrland Hotel.  What a beautiful oasis.

Ceiling in the hotel lobby.

Our RV park hosted a BBQ with live music entertainment.  Rich and Candy enjoyed a dance in the parking lot.

Tim Atwood, the leader of this band, was the staff pianist for the Grand Old Opry for over 30 years.  He has a great stage presence and voice.  The group entertained us for 4 hours.

Here is our group enjoying the concert.

Gary took advantage of the pool to cool off.

We took in a show, The Nashville Nightlife dinner theater.  A nice family owned and operated venue.  Turns out the owner, Kenny Janson, was the drummer for Tammy Wynette.  He was waiting tables when he stopped to visit with us.  Later he was the drummer for the band.  His wife was tending bar but was the lead female vocalist.  Their 20 year old son Zach Janson,  is an up and coming country music artist.  He was featured during the program.