Week 38 The Great River Road - Week 38 - September 20 - September 26, 2021

Say 1 - Monday September 20

We left our nice rest area and headed south to Le Claire. It turned out to be a great muiseum.  Buffalo Bill was born in   which is why the museum is here but he did most of his stuff in the west.  We learned a lot of things...mainly that he was likely the best known American in in the 1800's because of his Wild West Show.  Also, he killed a lot of buffalo - he was hired by a railroad to kill buffalo to feed their workers.  But...he likely killed more than were ever eaten because it was a challenge to see ow man could be killed in one hunt.  The museum also contained a ton of other stuff which was good too, but still just old stuff.  Included in the museum was the Lone Star, a wooden steam boat that you could walk in and around.    The average life of a steamboat was about five year, likely because thee was a huge coal fired steam boiler on board that had very little insulation.  they blew up, burned up, sank, and so forth.  I think it must have been a hard life.  Even into the 1950s some sold steamboats were used to push logs up and down the Mississippi.   We really loved the steam boat - it fit right in to our quest to learn about the Mississippi.

Then we went to Kalona, Iowa because it is an Amish/Mennonite area and there is a museum.  Well, we did see an Amish man with a horse and buggy parking before he went into a 7/11.  The "village" is a collection of old buildings from the pioneer prairie era that had been moved to this city.  We went from building to building  In the Mennonite Museum we did learn new things..  We asked the docent lots of questions about Amish and Mennonite and Anabaptist beliefs.  Most of the stuff in the museum came from belongings of the first three Amish/Mennonite families who came to the area.

It was all good but had nothing to do with the river - quite possibly because we had driven miles to the west of the river through fields and fields and more fields of corn that are waiting to be harvested and sent to the ethanol factory somewhere.

We had the best hamburger in Kalona at a Greek  restaurant.  The fries were the best we've ever eaten.

We headed back to the river to Davenport and crossed over into Illinois.  Thee was a rest area (with no facilities) a bit south of Andalusia that we thought we'd stay at, but upon arriving the sign said closed at 10:00 pm.  Not that we are afraid of breaking the rules, but we didn't want a kindly sheriff to be knocking on our door during the night.  

We saw a free campground on the free camping website, but it was confusing and we couldn't get any definite information about it by calling or online.  We went back to Andalusia to a little ice cream shop to as "is there anywhere we can park for the night?"  All four people who were either eating or serving ice cream immediately said go to the Loud Thunder Forest Reserve.....just down the road.  Sure enough, there is was right where the freecamping.net site had it on the map.  We drove in and went down a windy road to find three or four very rustic pull-ins, and we pulled in.  Just in time too, because it started raining and there was a lot of thunder and lightening. It was really hot inside the camper, but fortunately, there was no  wind so we could have the windows open and not have rainwater leaking in.

It was very quiet and peaceful.

Day 2 - Tuesday - September 21

Our plan was to go to a city (can remember which one) to go to a steamboat museum.  But, you're right, it was closed.  We decided, instead, to go to Hannibal, Missouri to the Mark Twain museum.  Hannibal is a very nice town which has created a historic downtown area that, probably, closely resembles the town when Sam Clemens lived there  .We went through the many of the original buildings and learned more about Mark Twain than is necessary. I bought an illustrated book of Tom Sawyer and would like to read it to grandchildren,

After that, we headed back north on the Illinois side to go to Nauvoo and meet up with Jenny and Larry, and Will.   They have purchased three houses in Nauvoo.  One they rent out on a daily basis

(Air B&B), one they are going to rent out on a daily basis after they buy some furnishings, and a third one they are totally remodeling with plans to move into by Christmas.  Right now they are renting a two bedroom house .  These four houses are all within three blocks of each other.  They seem to be doing well in Nauvoo.  Larry, especially, seems to be better.  He is talking well, his face looks good, and he can walk everywhere.  The move has been good for them.

We ate dinner with them and talked for several hours.  It is good to seem them again.