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Published: June 28th 2018
As a note of interest today: we were on or were very near to 5 different trails today. The California was as it sounds, the route that many took going west. The Mormons left from Council Bluffs/Omaha area. The Oregon Trail left from St. Joseph, Lewis and Clark came up the Missouri here (a shout out to Rhonda and Larry with whom we made the L & C Trail adventure with in 2001!!), and the Pony Express left from here! Whew! All of these trails crossed and recrossed each other on their way west. We mostly followed the Missouri River today and thus The Lewis and Clark Trail. We passed the monument to Sargent Floyd who was the only one on the L & C Expedition that died. The thought is that he died of appendicitis near present day Sioux City.
We were a little later pulling out of camp this morning than we had planned because, even though it is MY birthday MONTH...John’s 76th Birthday just happened (as it usually does on June 27th) to turn up once again! Happy Birthday my favorite person in all the world!! Because of this moment in
time, he ended up getting emails and phone calls from lots of lovely people. Thanks to all with special thanks to Pat R and Lora C for the birthday cards that they gave us before we left.
Our big plan for today was to stop in at Council Bluffs, Iowa and see one of our all time favorite people, Carol O. We met her and her sweet husband, Harold 19 years ago on an RV caravan with Creative World to the Maritime Provinces. We have remained friends ever since. Our Harold has since passed away and he is still sorely missed. We pulled out of camp heading her way at 9:15.
Before we left St. Joseph we drove by the Pony Express Museum to take a picture. A few years ago we were in this area and did a good job of checking out the local information on the Pony Express so it was just a cursory look this morning. Our drive to Council Bluff was very nice. The sky had that just washed look from the big storms that came through yesterday afternooon. Our drive was up the Missouri River Valley with the
Loess Hills (check them out on Google) to our right side for most of the day. They are a topographical feature that we were fascinated with several years ago.
The Loess Hills are a formation of wind-deposited
loess soil in the westernmost part of the
U.S. states of
Iowa and
Missouri along the
Missouri River.
We crossed the border into Iowa at 10:55 and were at Carol’s house a little after 12:00. Of course, she had prepared a lovely lunch...you just can’t take the hospitality out of a gal from Iowa!!
After a great lunch and an even greater catch up visit, we were once again on our way northward. On the way out of town we stopped at “Fort Walmart” to pick up a few supplies. Carol, you will be interested to know that we got turned around trying to get back on I-29 and almost had to go under a bridge with 8’ 8” of clearance...not a good thing since we measure in at 9’ 10”!!! Yikes! At any rate, we managed to turn around and wander back up to the correct turn and were once again turned in a northerly direction.
We crossed the border into South Dakota at North Sioux City at 5:35 and into the local KOA at 5:43. We are reasonably level, electric is good and the jury is still out on the WIFI! We have a beautiful afternoon for sure.
We drove 238 miles today.
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Janet Keefer
non-member comment
Iowa, eh?
So you were near our old stompimg grounds. Love your blog, and Happy Birthdays to you and John. But level with me. Are you really planning to escape to Canada?