Week ending Nov 5, 2015 Missouri Hannibal to St. Louis

Friday morning we stopped by the US Army Corp of Engineers Visitor Center to get hiking maps  and find out where it was safe to hike as hunting season is in full swing.  The very nice man at the center gave us information for not only Mark Twain lake but all the corp areas across the country. They have pretty decent campgrounds, showers, laundry facilities etc. 30 and 50 amp power.  The ones along Mark Twain Lake are fully treed and therefore not suitable for us, but suitable for a one night stop for sure. We have checked some other CoE sites and they were wide open and usually in areas where there is lots of hiking, great for seeing animals and birds  and generally around dams. We then headed to Indian Creek Recreation area. We found what we thought was a trail along the edge of the lake, so off we went. The trail came and went,  so we did some scrambles and generally enjoyed the lake views. It dawned on us the trail was not along the lake but there were only spurs to various view points from the campground. Oh well, we blazed our own trail.

Saturday was a showery day. We couldn't let that stop us so we walked down to the beach at John F. Spalding Rec. area from the Mark Twain Landing Resort.  The check in lady had told us that the lake was a mile away. Ok for a drizzly sort of walk. Off we went. We soon discovered her one mile estimate was to the park gate. All in all it was almost 2 miles to the beach. The weather was warm and the drizzle came and went so we enjoyed the walk. It was on paved roads so no slogging through mud.

Sunday we were off to the state park.  Since the park was around the lake on the middle of the south shore, the GPS took us on some interesting side roads where we wouldn't have wanted to meet a vehicle coming the other way.    The good roads must have been a longggg way around! 

We wanted to take a look at their campgrounds  The campground here was heavily treed, but very decent services. The park has lovely marked trails.  We completed two trails; the Whitetail Trail which became the Dogwood trail, a loop of a little over 2 miles.  They had a unique way of marking directions at trail junctions, with the icons for each trail and an arrow embedded in a concrete dome.

Beautiful views of the lake, wonderful forest trails. We did not see either whitetail deer or dogwood trees.

After a picnic lunch we headed back to the trailer to watch the Nascar race.

Monday morning we packed up with Dr. Edmund Babler State Park on the edge of St. Louis as our destination. We arrived shortly after noon.  Getting a site was not a problem, so we set for a few days.  Surprise; this state park has reasonably decent wi-fi.

Tuesday was a good day to catch up on some our maintenance and shopping.  We used Google maps to locate places to get things done, and to figure out the optimum route.   We started by getting an oil change, not where we had planned, but at a location on the way.  This took us a little longer than we thought it should, but we not only got the oil changed, but had a free car wash, drying, and even tire polishing. The truck hasn't looked so smart for a long time.  Then we carried on toward the next stop, but noticed a T-mobile store along the way.  We stopped in to get our wi-fi hotspot device reactivated.  It needed a new sim card, since it was inactive more than six months, and we put enough money on our account to last until March.  It wasn't a simple procedure, but with the help of a trainee, and her mentor, and finally the store manager, we got it all done and tested.    We then headed for Randalls, a wine store that was reported to have the Black Box Shiraz we prefer.   We picked up enough so we wouldn't have to look for more for a while.  Our next stop was the Vitamin Shoppe (after unsuccessfully searching for special vitamins at a supplement shop we noticed), where we were able to get Joan's rare vitamins in decent quantities.  By that time, we were well past lunch, so we headed back in the direction of the trailer, to the Super Smokers BBQ in Eureka which had been recommended by our friends Brian and Kris.  We picked up a slab of ribs, a selection of BBQ sauces, and some sides to enjoy back at the trailer.  

Wednesday was our day to the visit the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, one portion of which is the Gateway Arch. 

The whole site is undergoing a major upgrade, with many sections of it closed at the moment.  We found parking a few blocks from the Old Historic Courthouse, and walked through old town followings signs directing us to the courthouse where we purchased our tickets to take the ride to the top of the arch, and then walked down to the arch.   It was an interesting trip in a very small capsule type car.  We understood why the lady selling the tickets checked whether we were claustrophobic.

When we got to the top we had to climb a few stairs to arrive at the viewing platform. The views where quite amazing, even though it was a hazy day. We got a pretty decent view of the Busch Stadium, the Cardinals' baseball field

and the courthouse.

After our trip to the top we went back to the courthouse to walk through the museum that had been recently located to the courthouse.  A lot of very interesting history on the role of St. Louis in the expansion of the USA to the west coast.  By now it was lunch time and beside the parking lot was the Morgan Street Brewery. The perfect lunch stop, we shared a delicious BBQ chicken pizza (thin crust).  John had a pumpkin dark ale and Joan had a Roggan lager. They only sell their own in-house beers. As we were leaving they asked if we were parked across  the street and as a bonus they gave us a coupon to take a few dollars off our parking fees.  On our way back to the trailer we stopped at Trader Joe's for some groceries and as they didn't have the ice cream we like we stopped at Walmart as well. We then stopped at a BP station to fill the truck up in preparation for our departure tomorrow morning.

Thursday morning was moving day again. Time to head for the Trail of Tears State Park, where we will stay until Monday morning.  There were a few sprinkles while we hooked up the trailer, but we ran into a few showers on the drive south.  Once we turned off the interstate, we drove past a huge Proctor and Gamble plant near Fruitland.   A few miles further down the road, we got to the State Park, found a site that looked suitable for satellite access.  It took us a while to get the right angle, but got our signal and settled in.   Our back of the trailer has a view across the BNSF railroad tracks, about 50 yards behind us, to the Mississippi River.  We saw one barge heading upstream, and another heading downstream while we were getting set up.     Now the rain seems to have settled in for a while.