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Missouri
18th - 19th June 2008
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We had to alter our planned route through
Illinois and Missouri. We had intended to head to the
Mississippi River and follow its course northward, crossing into the state
of Missouri at Hannibal in the north of the state, before making a turn west
towards Kansas. However as we approached the state of
Missouri, we'd heard increasingly worse reports about the flooding spreading
southwards down the Mississippi River from the north. Day after
day we heard on local news reports of levy breeches, causing large scale
flooding and damage to vast areas of farmland and crop
losses.
As we made our way towards Missouri and
witnessed some of the flood damage for ourselves, we made a decision to
cross the Mississippi much further south than originally planned. This
turned out to be a good decision because the day we crossed, several of the
northern bridges had to be closed due to the floods. We crossed
from Chester in Illinois into Missouri, where we discovered that the petrol
prices were considerably lower than in Illinois. This made
us very happy as we had been running Harvey on fumes for quite a few miles,
whilst searching for a petrol station.
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Soon after arriving in Missouri, we found
ourselves in the historic town of Sainte Genevieve.
However, first we had a small (very small) obstacle to
overcome. We came face to face with a railroad trestle
with a clearance of only 9 foot. We were unsure of
Harvey's total height with all his roof fixtures but were sure that he
wouldn't pass under a 9 foot bridge. Needless to say, we quickly
pulled out the owners manual to check.
Unfortunately the tourist information centre
was downtown, on the other side of the bridge. We parked
Harvey safely on the "wrong side of the tracks" before making our
way downtown on foot. The friendly folks at the tourist office, pulled
out a street map of town and after some deliberation, found us a
Harvey-friendly route into the town.
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Oops better stop this side!
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Louis Bolduc House in Ste.
Genevieve.
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When originally settled in the 1740s, Sainte
Genevieve was originally part of the territory held by France and the French
colonial influence was still very apparent in the town.
The construction of the historic buildings was unusual in that they were
built of logs set vertically, rather than horizonally, to form the walls, a
style of building found not only in this town but also in Quebec and
Normandy.
Of course, the Louisiana Purchase Agreement
meant that the French-speaking settlers soon found themselves to be citizens
of the United States.
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After our enjoyable tour of Ste. Genevieve, we
turned northwards to take us safely away from the floods.
Another good choice, as we later learned that route 79 along the river also
had to be closed. We consulted our map to find a Missouri state
park with campground, where we could spend the
night.
One seemed ideally located, apparently close
to the highway on which we would be travelling. We set off for
Cuivre (apparently pronounced Quiver) Lake State Park. It
was true that the park borders lay close to our route but by the time we had
wandered along the meandering, winding lanes for miles until we eventually
tracked down the campground, the park didn't seem quite so
convenient. By the time we found the campground,
located a site and finished the checking in procedure, we were exhausted,
with little energy left to explore. However we did find the
strength to cycle to the beach. It seems that most inland
state parks seem to pride themselves on their lakeside beaches, which are
very popular with locals. We guessed these inland beaches in
states which lie hundreds of miles from the coast, would be the only ones
many locals got to visit.
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Early next morning we were underway
again. We made a quick stop at the original birthplace of Samuel
Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. The cabin had been
preserved inside a Mark Twain shrine about a quarter mile from its original
location in the village of Florida. The truth was that
neither of us had read any of his work but maybe it was high time we did,
now we'd visited his local neighbourhood!
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Mark Twains Birthplace
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The next and final stop on our flying visit to
Missouri was in the city of St. Joseph, in the west of the state right on
the border with Kansas. We set off in search of the
Pony Express Museum. The Pony Express was the original
"high speed" mail service to the west, taking mail from St. Joseph
in Missouri to Sacramento California. The museum was
on the site of the original stables.
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Three entrepreneurs had established the service
in 1860 in the hope of winning the government's $1 million mail
contract. After the mail had reached St. Joseph on a
record-breaking 50 mph train, it was packed in the 4-pocketed saddlebag,
known as the mochila, of the pony rider for its journey
west. Relay stations were established every 10 - 15
miles, where the mochila was transferred to a fresh horse and the rider was
allowed 2 minutes to take a drink. At home stations, 75 to
100 miles apart, the mail changed riders to continue its
journey. The Pony Express riders had to face many perils
on their journey across prairie, desert and treacherous mountains.
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Tribute to the brave Pony
Express riders
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Hmmm, sounds like the ideal
job - not!
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Still, Phil decides to give
it a try. Isn't he missing something?
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Despite the impressive delivery time of 10 days,
with riders as young as eleven years old, the service was short-lived, due
in part to resistance attacks by Native Indian Tribes bringing them close to
financial ruin and finally to the introduction of the coast to coast
telegraph service.
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By late afternoon Harvey was following in the
footsteps of the fearless Pony Express riders. We though
had the added convenience of a highway bridge, rather than a ferry, on which
to cross the Missouri river into the state of Kansas.
Approaching the Missouri
River Crossing into Kansas.
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