Sunrise on the Mississippi

                                                Another great start to a beautiful day.

                                        

                                         

                                          

Memphis, TN

            We visited the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis. This was very interesting. They had metal sculptures all around the grounds.  Also had two buildings with all types of sculptures displayed, and a working blacksmith shop. A gift shop with items for sale that students had made. They give classes here for apprentices of the trade.

                                                 

                                                                 Steel water fountain.

                                                Notice the little ornaments in the wrought iron gate above.

Weat Memphis, AR

Sitting at the Tom Sawyer campground in West Memphis AR looking out at the barges going up and down the Mississippi River. Quite a sight watching these large tugs pushing these barges.

Cape Girardeau, MO

These flood walls on the Mississippi river side of town are about 30 or 35 feet tall, with large steel doors that they can close.They have painted murals all along the wall.

Hannibal,MO

Hannibal has a very nice, quaint, historic downtown area right near the Missippi River.  Took the Trolley tour, was very informative.  Mark Twain lived and wrote here, he said "the missippi river is too thick to drink and too thin to plow"

Next stop

Tomorrow we are leaving Amana Iowa heading to Hannibal Missouri home of Mark Twain and the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Hope to ride the Mark Twain Riverboat down part of the Mississippi River while we are there. Still a lot more to see on this trip. We've started  talking about our next trip already.

Amana Iowa

We are now in the state of Iowa, I have never seen so much corn being grown. We have driven all across the state and there are corn fields and soy bean fields all over the place. We are presently in the Amana Colonies. There are seven villages that make up the colonies which were started in  1855 by German immigrants, they left Germany because of religious prosecution. The system of early Amana was a pure communal system motivated by deep religious convictions. They established themselves as completely self-sufficient society requiring little contact with the "outside" world. What a nice town. Yes they did start the Amana appliances (and Whirlpool)and still make them in one of the villages. 

In the Colonies they have their own, bakeries, make cheese, butter, smoke meats, have a butcher shop,several blacksmith shops, and artists of all kinds, make great German BEER!! Several good German restaurants.They spin their own wool and cotton and knit, crochet and loom rugs, blankets and such.  They have winemakers and furniture builders...but no where to get your hair cut, I guess they do that themselves.    

                                         

Sioux Falls SD.

This is a city park in Sioux Falls SD. The park is very large with picnic areas and a restaurant over looking the falls. You can take a free trolley from the park and tour the downtown area, getting on & off the trolley as many times as you want. Very nice area of the country. 

Custer St. Park - Mt. Rushmore

                                                 No Clare Abby does not need any new friends.

                                                         Clare training her new friend.

Buffalo in Custer St. Park campground

                                                 This was a one way tunnel each side
                                                  took turns going through. We shared
                                                 the road today with hundreds of motorcycles.

                                                                       Mt. Rushmore

Cody Wyoming

Went to the Cody Rodeo while in town. Cody is a very nice town with a lot of things to do. The Cody Museum was very interesting. It had 5 different wings. We were there for about 4 hours and we were going through it at a good clip.

Yellowstone Park

This guy swam across a stream and came right towards me.

This guy was looking right at me as I was trying to get close for a good shot.

An awesome Nat'l Park, the views are to die for (almost overloads your senses). The second pic is a young moose that we saw and he crossed the stream straight up the bank towards Gary (within 10') asshole Gary, not the moose. Leaving the west way through YNP going towards Cody, WY today we were stopped by a couple of herds of Bison, right on the road. AGAIN, Gary had to get out and take pics of the Bison and got chased around a car by a big Bull (asshole, again Gary). I'm gonna be a widdow soon, I'm sure. Had a suspensful drive out the rest of the way, traversing Sylvan pass and more. We are now in Cody, WY and went into town for dinner and saw a (free) shoot out western show on the main street. cool town!!! STILL HAVING FUN!!!