Summer04 Part 2

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Cross-Country -- August thru November 2004

This is the second page of our cross-county trip.

(Click on any photo to see a larger version; Use your Back button to return to this page.)

On Wednesday morning, we drove back into Kansas City, Mo to visit the outstanding Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which displays mid-eastern and asian art and artifacts in well-designed galleries that complement the collections. After returning to the park to collect the RV, we headed west for St. Louis, Mo, intending to stay in a nearby State Park called Horseshoe Bend,
For the first time, our Street Atlas program and GPS let us down. After wandering around dirt roads in the dark for 30 minutes, we gave up and drove to the Granite City, Mo Wal-Mart parking lot! Jackie got the manager's assurances that overnight parking was okay, but around 10 pm, someone told us we had to move as they were re-painting the parking stripes that night! Fortunately, we were able to re-park in an area that had already been painted, and the next morning we drove the car into St. Louis and the Gateway Arch.

The arch is formally known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and includes not only the Arch itself, but a great musuem of western expansion, a marvelous National Geographic movie that recreates the Lewis and Clark "Voyage of Discover", and a river-front tour on a stern-wheel excursion boat. We did it all, including the tramway ride up the interior of the Arch, but took few photos.
After returning to Wal-Mart to collect the RV, we headed only a few miles west to Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which preserves remnants of a Missourian culture city which thrived their between 1000 and 1400 CE. The interpretive museum is amazing, retelling the story of people who built a city which was larger than London at the time, and explaining what we know and don't know of their way of life. We'd have spent more time, but needed to shorten our visit so we could get to Bloomington, Ind.

We arrived at Jeff and Jackie's home late Thursday evening in time to spend a delightful Labor Day weekend. Highlights included visiting Nick and Emily's school, watching Nick's team win their season opening football game, with Emily and her friends as cheerleaders; watching Jackie's MBA alma mater beat her undergrad school, Central Michigan, visit Bloomington friends, see the progress on Jeff and Jackie's new house, give our new inflatable kayak its maiden voyage, and more. By Tuesday, everyone was ready for school and work, and we were off to Chicago

Click here for more highlights from Summer 2004. Click here to return to Noel and Jackie's home page.


Cross-Country -- August thru November 2004

This is the second page of our cross-county trip. (Click on any photo to see a larger version; Use your Back button to return to this page.)
On Wednesday morning, we drove back into Kansas City, Mo to visit the outstanding Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which displays mid-eastern and asian art and artifacts in well-designed galleries that complement the collections. After returning to the park to collect the RV, we headed west for St. Louis, Mo, intending to stay in a nearby State Park called Horseshoe Bend, For the first time, our Street Atlas program and GPS let us down. After wandering around dirt roads in the dark for 30 minutes, we gave up and drove to the Granite City, Mo Wal-Mart parking lot! Jackie got the manager's assurances that overnight parking was okay, but around 10 pm, someone told us we had to move as they were re-painting the parking stripes that night! Fortunately, we were able to re-park in an area that had already been painted, and the next morning we drove the car into St. Louis and the Gateway Arch.
		The arch is formally known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and includes not only the Arch itself, but a great musuem of western expansion, a marvelous National Geographic movie that recreates the Lewis and Clark "Voyage of Discover", and a river-front tour on a stern-wheel excursion boat. We did it all, including the tramway ride up the interior of the Arch, but took few photos. After returning to Wal-Mart to collect the RV, we headed only a few miles west to Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which preserves remnants of a Missourian culture city which thrived their between 1000 and 1400 CE. The interpretive museum is amazing, retelling the story of people who built a city which was larger than London at the time, and explaining what we know and don't know of their way of life. We'd have spent more time, but needed to shorten our visit so we could get to Bloomington, Ind.
	We arrived at Jeff and Jackie's home late Thursday evening in time to spend a delightful Labor Day weekend. Highlights included visiting Nick and Emily's school, watching Nick's team win their season opening football game, with Emily and her friends as cheerleaders; watching Jackie's MBA alma mater beat her undergrad school, Central Michigan, visit Bloomington friends, see the progress on Jeff and Jackie's new house, give our new inflatable kayak its maiden voyage, and more. By Tuesday, everyone was ready for school and work, and we were off to Chicago
Click here for more highlights from Summer 2004. Click here to return to Noel and Jackie's home page.