Week ending Oct 29, 2015 Dubuque to Hannibal

Friday after a Skype visit with John's parents we moved from the Dubuque County Fairgrounds to Miller Riverview park.  It is perfectly situated on the banks of the Mississippi River. 

 

Saturday we did a scenic drive north to the Effigy Mounds.
 

While there we completed a 2 mile hike that included Little Bear Mound Group and Fire Point and Eagle Rock viewpoints. The viewpoints looked out over the river.

We also noticed a CP engine.   CP purchased the DME railroad about 10 years ago, but this is the first actual CP engine we have seen in this area.

Sunday was a beautiful day, we did a walk around the park, watched the river traffic and finally watched the Nascar race.

Monday it was time to head south.   We headed across the river into Illinois, going through the towns of Galena, Hanover, Savanna, Fulton and Port Byron.    Our Great River Road brochure indicated that there was a Welcome Center in Le Claire, back on the Iowa side, with a view 6 miles along the river.  However, we only found a Shell station at the address listed.  Not sure whether this was a GPS mistake, or a listing error, but we were disappointed. 

We had been planning on staying at Nauvoo State Park on the Illinois side of the river,  but we decided to look for something closer to the Toolesboro Mounds site near Wapello.   At our lunch stop we made a call to check about a couple of campgrounds that were listed in an Iowa guide.   They turned out to be County campgrounds along the river south of Muscatine.  One had a steep descent to the river, but the other one would have been okay.  However, the lady also recommended a private campground on the highway near Wapello.   We called Papa's Campground and yes they have space and yes their water is still on. Only the 2nd rv park with the water still on since we left Canada.  We got set up.

Tuesday was our first rainy day of this trip.   We saw on the internet that after Labour Day, the Toolesboro Mounds are only open on Saturday from noon to four.   Coincidentally, the number listed was the same as for the County Campgrounds, so we may have been talking to the same lady as yesterday.   She confirmed the times, but said that although the visitor center would be closed, there were some interpretive signs at the site.

We can't let a bit of rain stop us so we headed to Walmart and Lowes in Burlington to pick up a few supplies and get John's glasses repaired. We then drove to the Toolesboro Mounds.  The burial mounds here are examples of the mounds of the Hopewellian Culture which is a one of the pre-historic mound building groups that inhabited the Mississippi valley.  The people of the Hopewellian culture were known for their artistic achievements and elaborate death ceremonies. These burial mounds date from  the mid-woodland period being 200 B.C. to 400 A.D.  We were surprised to find out that such a highly developed people resided in North America.

After visiting the burial mounds we went back to the trailer and hoped that the rain stops by tomorrow.

Wednesday morning although cloudy was not raining, making packing up much more pleasant. We stopped for fuel and breakfast at Casey's.  We plugged the address of Mark Twain Landing Resort into Greta, looked at the map so we had a reasonably good idea of our route and headed off.  Today we had another example of why you don't follow your GPS blindly. Greta did very well until she instructed us to turn right onto an obscure muddy road, not so likely we figured, since our turn was supposed to be on Landing Lane. A few yards down the road our turn appeared and we shortly arrived at the resort. It seems like an ok place, close to the places we want to go and one of the few rv parks in the area with it water still on and offers wi-fi to its guests. 

Thursday we headed toward Quincy, Illinois, to check about getting our T-Mobile hotspot activated. On our way to Best Buy we made an unexpected stop at a Missouri welcome centre. A real find, the fellow there was not only helpful he had a raft of information about all the states we will be visiting as we head down toward New Orleans.  After chatting with the phone people at Best Buy we decided that waiting another week or so until we get to St. Louis is the best.  In the mean time we are relying on our phone as a hotspot as well as campground wi-fi.

Our next stop was Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum.

 Becky Thatcher's House

It was quite interesting and John discovered there were numerous books written by Mark Twain that he still needs to read.  After doing the museum, we were ready for lunch and luckily for us across the street from the museum was the Mark Twain Brewery.   Joan enjoyed a pint of Riverboat Red beer along with her chicken salad, John enjoyed his Hucks Apricot Habanero Wheat beer with a steak sandwich. It was then back to the trailer to study our travel info and enjoy the sunny day.