Showing posts with label vacations and trips 2024. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacations and trips 2024. Show all posts

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Sunday Evening - Trip Photos - Cape Girardeau Day 2, (World's Largest Fountain Cup, Trail of Tears State Park) and More

It's the first day of autumn and, after a miserably hot last day of summer, cooler temperatures have arrived. I'm so thankful! I hope you and yours had a lovely last weekend of summer! Before another busy week starts, I thought I'd get on here and share a few more trip photos. 

Day 2 of our trip started with breakfast at our hotel. 


Aaron's sister, Kate, from Illinois met us at breakfast and spent the day with us. We had a ball!





The first stop on our way out of town was to see the 'World's Largest Fountain Drink Cup' in Cape Girardeau. It was just around the corner from our hotel.



The cup stands 15 feet tall and holds 
605,556 regular size cups of whatever the nearest convience store would care to put into it.



Next we headed to Trail of Tears State Park near Jackson, Missouri.







We toured the visitor center, got to observe several reptiles along the rock wall, and shed tears while learning about the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from the southeast United States. I am sharing the movie that we watched here...



We enjoyed a picnic lunch on the grounds and the beauty of the surrounding river bluffs. 







Trail of Tears is a beautiful park and one I'd like to visit again and spend more time at in the future.

Until next time...
~Rebecca

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Friday, September 13, 2024

Friday Afternoon - Trip Photos (Our First Night In Cape, Life on the Mississippi, Eyes in the Water) and More

I'm working a split-shift at work today...had a group in this morning and have a special program tonight. I thought I'd use this time in between to post some more trip photos...this time of our first night in Cape Girardeau. 



After a full day of travel and sightseeing, we arrived in Cape Girardeau in the late evening. On our way in we passed this building...the Red House Interpretive Center on the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail...in downtown Cape Girardeau. 

The original building (the best known trading post on the Mississippi between St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee during the early 19th Century and visited by Lewis and Clark to purchase supplies for their upcoming expedition in November of 1803), was built by Cape Girardeau founder and French-Canadian, Louis Lorimier. The original building was destroyed by a tornado in 1850, but was rebuilt by a group of volunteers in 2003. As you can see, the building, built in the favored French poteau-sur-solle technique, is currently undergoing some refurbishing.



After checking in at our hotel, we headed on down to the waterfront. Our first stop was to see 'The Great Wall' of Cape Girardeau. 



The 1.3-mile, 16-foot tall floodwall features two sets of murals that face the city. 



The 500-foot-long 'Missouri Wall of Fame' features 47 famous Missourians. It was painted in 1995 by artist, Margaret Dement.



In 'Mississippi River Tales' Cape Girardeau's history is depicted in 24 panels covering approximately 1,100 feet.



For a complete set of photos of the murals, click HERE.



After working our way down, we eventually came to a break in the wall. There we entered the 1.5-acre Riverfront Park, which features a riverfront walk/bike trail and terraced seating for an amphitheater effect. The park is located on the river side of the flood wall and serves as a docking site for paddle boats.



This barge on the Mississippi is the first thing that we saw upon entering Riverside Park.



The sun was setting and we just sat by the river for awhile and enjoyed it's beauty. 




Just outside the break in the wall, and cattycorner across the street, we had supper at Port Cape Girardeau and, honestly, it was some of the best food I've ever eaten. 



The place had some interesting Civil War history to be sure! 



After supper, we returned to Riverside Park to enjoy the river at night. It was so beautiful! 



All of a sudden, granddaughter, Alysia, exclaimed, "What's that in the water?" At first, we weren't able to make out what we were seeing, and, it was so dark, that we never did get any good photos, but, there were several sets of eyes in the water. 



Son-in-law, Aaron, went down to river's edge to investigate, but, even with a flashlight he was unable to detect anything. We, on the other hand, sitting atop the terraced steps, watched as, whatever was in the water, started moving towards him. 



Soon Aaron was surrounded by whatever the creatures were in the water and we were getting a little nervous. There were a couple of big splashes and a lot of activity. Long story short, the eyes in the water belonged to a family of river otters! What a cool experience!!! 



Before heading for our hotel, we ended our night by driving across the double-expansion bridge into Illinois and back. 

After that, we went to our hotel. The girls and I walked, then, after an extremely long day, everyone got ready for bed to get some much-needed rest. What a great first day of our trip and there's plenty more to share!

Until next time...
~Rebecca

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Thursday, September 12, 2024

Thursday Afternoon - Trip Photos (Bollinger Mill State Historic Site and Burfordville Covered Bridge) and More

In the last 'trip photos' post, I shared pictures taken at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge near Puxico, Missouri.



Upon leaving Mingo, our party pressed north and east to Burfordville, Missouri where we briefly toured Bollinger Mill State Historic Site and the Burfordville Covered Bridge. 



We arrived late in the day and the mill was not open. You could tell that there is a lot of work going on at the site as there were cordened off areas and signage, as well as lots of equipment everywhere.



From what I understand, the mill was badly damaged during major flooding a while back and is in great need of immediate repair before major flooding has a chance to occur again. 



Still the mill was lovely from the outside where it is beautifully situated on the upper arm of Whitewater River.

Who can tell me what the metal stars on the
outside of this mill represented?


Right next to Bollinger Mill, the Burfordville Covered Bridge stands as a sentinel to days gone by.



The Burfordville Covered Bridge, built in 1858, features Howe-truss construction and is the oldest remaining covered bridge in our state. It is the third of the four remaining covered bridges in our state that I have had the pleasure of visiting. 



(At one time there were an estimated 30 some such bridges spanning creeks and rivers in Missouri from the 1820's through the end of the century.)



Well, this is all of the photos that I have of those two sites, so I guess that's it for today, BUT, in the next post, we will finally arrive in Cape Girardeau! There's still lots more to share! Thanks for bearing with me! 

Until next time...
~Rebecca

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#bollingermill #burfordvillecoveredbridge #missouristateparks #missourstatehistoricsites #coveredbridges #oldmills















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Sunday, September 1, 2024

Sunday Afternoon - Trip Photos (Mingo National Wildlife Refuge)

As stated in a previous post, life is moving fast and there's so much going on, that I find it hard to keep up. I refuse to give up though! I've started multiple posts over the past week and a half and have finished none. Hopefully, this one will, not only get finished, but posted and out. Wish me luck! 😊

First of all, I want to catch up on some more of those trip pictures that I promised...and warning! There a LOT of them!

In my last post, I left you with a sneak preview of what was next.



Upon leaving Shannon County, I was further east in the southern part of Missouri than I had ever been in my life. As we pressed onward towards the eastern border, these huge, white flowers started appearing along the roadsides. They were very tall (typically 4 to 6 feet tall, but sometimes up to 8) with flowers about six-inches across. I had never seen one before and was totally mesmerized. They turned out to be Hairy Rose Mallow...a plant that likes to grow in wet and swampy areas.



Our next stop was at the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Stoddard and southeastern Wayne counties.

Egret

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a View Master projector and one of my favorite set of reels to go through was one on Cypress Gardens in Florida. 



Visiting Mingo made one of my life-long dreams of seeing a real-life, naturally occuring, cypress swamp come true.



Containing the only large tract of bottomland forest remaining from the original 2.5 million acres native to the bootheel of Missouri, Mingo Swamp covers some 16,000 acres of 21,676 refuge area. 

Son-in-law, Aaron, and Granddaughter, Alyssia

Our time at Mingo consisted of a visit to the nature center...











...a picnic lunch...





...and taking the 17-mile Ozark Highland Auto Tour.  






Along the way we saw a lot of flowers...

Cardinal Flower

Purple Coneflower

Ironweed

I have no idea what this one is.

Tiger Swallowtail on Buttonbush

Jewelweed

...and quite a few animals.

Egret and Turtle

White-tailed Deer

Cottonmouth Snake
(Venomous)


Turtles
(Lots and lots and LOTS of turtles!)



We passed this little lake on our way out...

May Lake

Mingo National Wildlife Refuge was a great place to visit and I hope to return again someday to explore further. 



Well, believe it or not, I had more that I wanted to share today (I know...it's already been a lot), but it's getting late and I've got a birthday party to attend, so I guess I better wrap it up and scoot on out of here. I will try to post more trip photos soon. 

Have a lovely holiday weekend!

Until next time...
~Rebecca

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