For a little family adventure we headed to Missouri this past week. We started the trip with some camping. Our first stop was Hannibal, MO. This is the town Mark Twain grew up in and some of his books spotlight a cave found there. We arrived near dinner time. Our departure was delayed because we were awaiting the installation of the hitch for the new bike rack. We now can bring all four bikes when we travel. The next morning we decided to tour the Mark Twain cave. It was an hour long tour and quite informative. It made us all curious to read Tom Sawyer, as many scenes from the book describe the cave that Twain grew up exploring. Teresa was especially intrigued about the effects a being in a cave in pitch black for an extended time. A moment on the tour let us experience pure darkness.
Midday we got on the road again to head for Johnson Shut-ins State park--a two hour drive south.
We got our campsite set up and had some dinner. Then we went to explore the Shut-ins which is a river that gets shut in by lots of rocks. It makes for a fun place to climb and swim. Just Troy and the kids went in that first night.
The next day we drove to Elephant Rocks state park. It has huge boulders to climb around on. It was a short hike to see some huge rocks. It was fun to see some names etched in the stone from a long time ago.
Next we drove up to Taum Sauk--which is the highest point in Missouri. It was a 2 minute walk to this point. But all we found was this plaque in the ground and it was far from impressive. It rained on the way back to the van, so we were glad the hike was short!
After lunch we hoped for good weather and headed back to the Shut-ins. It turned out to be a beautiful day. and we spent the whole afternoon playing the water and climbing the rocks. I liked floating on the tube best. Timothy liked climbing up the rocks and going down the water slides--natural ones! Teresa did not like seeing the fish.
On our last day of camping I promised the kids a treat of pop-tarts for breakfast. We were pleased to have had great weather for camping. Not too hot and not too buggy. We did learn about a new nocturnal bird during this trip...the whippoorwill. It sure was a noisy bird! We also had one bike accident--Teresa fell on our last night as she biked around the campsite. Thankfully she was only scraped up and not hurt worse.
The next part of our adventure took us into St. Louis. We stopped at the arch and toured the museum and took the tram car up to the top.
The views from the top were pretty neat, but it sure was crowded in the top of the arch. We took our few pictures and then headed back down on the tram.
The highlight of that day was probably what came after the visit to the arch. I had read a blog that mentioned a place called Fitz's that is know for its Root beer floats. We ordered two floats and the waitress kindly split them into 4 glasses. When they first arrived we were pretty sure she had the order wrong and gave us four full floats as they were big! But later we saw the full size and wow, those were huge!! Teresa picked a peanut butter cup float: chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, creme soda and chocolate syrup and whipped creme. Timothy chose Ghostbusters: root beer, vanilla ice cream, marshmallow fluff, chocolate sauce and whipped creme. Delicious!!
And always...a day is best ended with a dip in the pool. We had lots of fun with the inner tubes from the dollar store!
Our second day in St. Louis was filled with a trip to the City Museum. It is an old warehouse building that artists and designers have filled with all kinds of things to climb, explore and experience including lots of slides--one even called the 10 story slide. There was also a ferris wheel on the rooftop that we got to ride.
Here we are--atop a Ferris wheel, atop a building! Fun and Frightening!
The city museum was a busy place and there are no maps telling you where anything is. Yes that lets you discover on your own, but also makes a crazy busy place a bit more overwhelming. It was fun, but maybe not the most favorite part of the trip.
After the museum, we stopped at The City garden downtown. It is a park in the middle of the city with lots of sculptures and water areas that they kids could explore and play in. This was also recommended in a blog!
For dinner we ventured to a town near our hotel called St. Charles. It was the first capital of Missouri and the third oldest town. It was a cute historic town that is now touristy with shops and dining. We at a BBQ place. Troy loved it! Teresa enjoyed her meal. It was okay for Timothy. The restaurant itself was a fun, bright and interesting place. We walked around town after dinner and ended up buying some dessert at the many bake and ice cream shops! It is good we walked around a little because our plan to bike the next day was changed due to lots of rain.
Because we bought a hitch and rack so we could bike on this trip, Troy was very disappointed by the rain. So we changed plans and moved our bike ride to a different city. First we stopped in Springfield Illinois to tour the house Lincoln lived in. Then we stopped in Davenport and rode along the river for about an hour. And we were alerted to the fact that a tasty ice cream shop was close to the trail by a friend of Troy's, so one more treat to end the trip. What a fun week it was!
