Rivers West Tour - Day 2

Today we toured Daniel Boone's home and village.  Most of the buildings have been moved from other places, but represent the type of buildings that would have been there.

Our first stop was Daniel Boone's home which actually belonged to his son.  It's four stories tall and we were able to tour several of the rooms.

Boone's Home

Front Door

Parlor

Sitting Room

Kitchen

Back of House

 We also toured some of the other buildings in the village.

The Carpenter Shop

The General Store

Squire Boone's Home

My favorite building, though was the chapel.  It's not original to the site and was not from Daniel Boone's time, but it is peaceful and simple.  The docent rang the church bells for us and played a "hymn" on the pipe organ called the Missouri Summer Song--to the tune of Take Me out to the Ball Game.  He also explained how they were able to lower the chandelier to light the candles and that the clock had three faces, one on the clock itself, one on the pipe organ and one on the steeple.

Chapel

 

Another View of the Chapel

Inside the Chapel

Chapel Clock

There was a lot of walking, but it was split up into sections and one of the wagon masters stuck pretty close to me to make sure I didn't have trouble on the rough ground or going up and down steps.  Most of the time I was able to use ramps though.

Our next and last stop for today was a gourmet lunch at the Defiance Ridge Vineyard.  Again, the food was very good--chicken salad and roast beef & provolone sliders, a delicious broccoli slaw salad, seasoned crinkle cut potato chips and either an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie or a brownie.  There were various drink options or you could buy wine or beer.  Me, I stuck with the lemonade.

Tomorrow the bus doesn't leave until 8:30 and will take us to the Gateway Arch, William Clark's Gravesite and Camp River Dubois Interpretive Center.

Just a quick last note to say that for some reason, I'm not getting the comments emailed to me, but have to reply on the post itself.

Rivers West Tour - Day 3 (Belle Fontaine Cemetery and Boat House)

Because of the number of pictures of the arch, I've decided to divide this into two posts.  

 After leaving the arch, we re-boarded the buses and were driven to the Belle Fontaine Cemetery which is huge and only half full.  We stayed on the bus for two different tours.  The first showed us the graves of a medal of honor winner as well as many famous Missouri residents such as Anhauser Busch.  We did get out once to see a mausoleum where a husband and wife were buried.

Then the second docent boarded the bus and showed us mostly Clark family graves.

Grave Stone

A Statue

Part of William Clark's Grave

William Clark's Grave

Docent giving the second tour

 

After the cemetery, the bus took us back to St. Charles and we visited a boathouse which showed a movie about Lewis and Clark's travels and had several exhibits.

 I took several more pictures of the boat house exhibits, but my computer wouldn't upload them for me.

Tomorrow: Travel Day to Arrow Rock Campground in Arrow Rock, MO.

Rivers West Tour - Day 3 (The Gateway Arch)

It rained hard most of the night so we were concerned about today's events, but the rain went away as we waited for the bus and stayed away all day.

We took two tour buses to the Gateway Arch, the Bellefontaine Cemetery where William Clark is buried and an interpretive museum on the river.

First, the arch.  I'd been before, but David never had and I don't remember half of the exhibits.  While waiting for our tickets, we wandered around outside. 

The Gateway Arch

Close up of Arch Leg

A friend offered to take our picture

View of the other side from the grounds

Our first stop was a movie about the building of the arch and then a tram ride to the top of the arch.  The tram cubicles are very small and can barely hold five people.  We only had four people in ours; because of David's size, a fifth wouldn't fit.  The following pictures were projected onto the tram doors while you waited to board.

 It was an interesting ride that takes four minutes to get to the top and three and a half minutes to get back down.  At first it feels like your pod is climbing the stairs, but then it evens out and just climbs smoothly.  Near the top, it feels like the pod is climbing stairs again.  The floor at the top is not level and the windows are fairly small vertically.  I took the next two pictures to show the view from the top as opposed to the view from the ground.

And the view out the other side:

 

 

As we entered the exhibit hall, they took our picture.  Since we purchased the photo, they sent us some digital photos also.

On our way out, there was this mock up of the tram pod so you can see how small it is.

Rivers West Tour - Day 1

Today was kind of a lazy day since there were no events until 2:00.  

I worked on my blog most of the day, but wasn't able to catch up.  As you can probably tell, I'm not the best photographer and I took so many pictures that I was having trouble figuring out what was what.  So I spent the day organizing, editing and deleting duplicates.  Posting should go faster now, but I'm going to start posting the actual tour events and play catch-up on our travels en route to St. Charles.

We had an orientation meeting at 2:00 with snacks of fruit, cheese and toasted ravioli as well as ginger ale for toasting.  They gave us some information and everyone introduced themselves.

The Welcome Dinner was at 5:00 and consisted of a Caesar Salad, Roast Beef in Gravy or Chicken Parmesan with Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Dinner Rolls with Apple Pie for dessert.  You provided your own beverages.

After eating and getting better acquainted with the couples at our table, we were visited by Jean Baptiste (last name unknown) who traveled with Lewis and Clark on their journey.  He faked a French accent and told many anecdotes about the journey and also told many jokes.  We all laughed a lot.

Tomorrow, we board a bus at 7:30 a.m. to visit Daniel Boone's home and village and have a gourmet lunch at Defiance Ridge Vineyards.

May 29th (Springfield, MO to St. Charles, MO)

We had a fairly short drive today of less than four hours so we left a little later than usual.  We really enjoyed our stay at the Springfield/Route 66 KOA in Springfield, MO.  Here are a couple of picture of the office and park sign.

As we were leaving the park, we spotted this sign  --  Don't forget your WIFE.

As we've been traveling, we've noticed a lot of the Truck Stops flying large flags at half mast.  We didn't know about the shooting in Texas when we saw the first one and wondered what had happened.

 Most of our drive through Missouri has been on straight roads with lots of greenery.

We arrived at the RV park for the start of our tour and almost immediately, the Tail Gunner was up on a ladder adding the sticker with our rig number to the windshield.  Unfortunately, the only available spaces were of the back-in variety so we had to unhook both the car and the tow dolly.

After registering, we decided to tour the town and see what we could find for dinner.   We drove through Old Town with it's streets and buildings made of brick.  Brick is really popular in Missouri.  

For dinner, we found a Texas Roadhouse.  Since there aren't any near us at home, we try to look for them on the road.   The food was very good  and I had the best Caesar Salad ever.  David's steak was really good, too.  We've definitely eaten well on this trip.

She's in High School Now

Kyleigh graduated from St. Paul's Lutheran School (K-8th grade) tonight.  Unfortunately, we were unable to be there because of our trip, but both sets of parents and her paternal grandparents were there to see it.

Janice sent me the following pictures:

Grad Photo

Kyleigh and her best friend

Ky and Lindsay with the Joy (the DCE)

Getting a hug from Joy

 Kyleigh starts her first high school sometime in June.  It's an online health class, but she has to attend in person on Mondays to take the tests.

Kyleigh also made the High Honor Roll with a GPA of 3.94.  Not bad for a kid who's dyslexic and has ADHD.