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Published: August 31st 2009
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St. Louis Arch
On a day that wasn't too bad weather we went to see the Arch. It was in a nice park right on the rivver.
7-2-09 We had gotten reservations near East St Louis IL in a small town called Cahokia for the 4th of July. We arrived on July 2 mid afternoon, on a grey day, but decided to go for a drive to find a place to watch the fire works. It was a pretty nice camp ground with an excellent BBQ resturant called the Saw Mill. We had dinner there and it was very good but we found their speciality a couple days later. We were only there 6 nights but ate at the Saw Mill 3 times. They made their own thick potato chips and used them in a dish they called BBQ nachos. They put pulled pork, cheese, baked beans and slaw on them and they were amazing.
7-3-09 We had to do laundry and I had run out of some of my pills so we had to find a CVS to get refills. After finishing the laundry we went for a long ride. We found a church for Sunday, stopped at a welcome center for Illinois, then back by a CVS. When we got back to camp it was getting late and we decided to try
U.S. Grant National Park
Right near St. Louis is a national park on some of the land President Grant owned at one time.
a take out order of the BBQ nachos. It started to rain by bedtime.
7-4-09 It rained all day so although we had planned to watch the fireworks under the Arch from across the river the weather was soooo bad we stayed in all day.
7-5-09 It rained so much the other end of the camp from where we are staying was a huge lake. There's actually a small pond there but this morning it covered at least 20 camp sites. Some poor folks in tents must have nearly drowned, everything they had was soaked. Although it was still overcast and sticky after church we decided to go to see the arch. There is a very nice park all along the river and around the bottom of the arch. We enjoyed the park but with the heat and high humidity we weren't there long before we were exhausted.
7-6-09 We had decided to go to Grant Park today and got there to find it was closed on Mondays so we decided to visit U.S. Grant National Park. The park was very nice. We took a
White Haven
This house originally belonged to Grant's father in law. He bought it after the Civil War.
tour with a park ranger who explained that the house had originally been owned by Grant's father-in-law who named White Haven. Later he got in financial trouble and Grant bought it. While Grant was president he rented it and they think that may be when they painted it green. After his presidency Grant got very ill and sold White Haven.
7-7-09 We had planned to leave today but decided to stay over and go to Grant Park which is an Anheuser-Busch park. This park is located on part of White Haven next to U.S. Grant National Park. You enter the park on a trolly, the first thing we saw was the log house Grant had built for his family but shortly after moving in Julia's mother died and her father asked them to move back in to the main house with him. The fence near the house was made entirely from gun barrels. Further along there were two ponds with a lot of carp and some wild ducks. The main park had a bird show when we first arrived there was another show but we didn't go and I've forgotten what it was. We saw
Owl in bird show at Grant Farm
Part of the Grant estate was later acquired by Anheuser Bush for their park called Grant's Farm
the llama and the mom, dad and two baby camels. They had other animals including 2 injured eagles, kangaroos and a miniture horse. After seeing most every thing there we had a light lunch and went back to the parking lot which was near the pasture where they kept the Clydesdales. There were sever males in one area and a couple mothers with babies in another. On the way back to camp we passed a produce market and decided to stop. We got some of the best peaches I have ever eaten.
7- 8 & 9 -09 I'm too far behind in my blogging, I can't even remember what we saw or did in Carlock Il.
7- 10 thru 12 -09 We were about 60 or 70 miles south of my baby sister's so we decided to call and spend the afternoon with her and her family. It was great to see Judy, her husband Johnny, and 2 of her children, Ali her youngest and her son Nick who graduated from college last spring. We had a great visit and on the way back to camp ended up in the middle of an
Timber Lake
This beautiful was part of the campground we stayed at near Huntington IN.
antique car parade.
7- 13 thru 17 -09 We moved on to Camp Timber Lake in Huntington, In. While there we visited Ft. Wayne (they were having a festival but we didn't go to it) and found the Vice Presidents museum. The VP mseum was mostly about Dan Quail who was from the area, but had info about every VP. We also found an interesting museum called Sheets Wildlife Museum. It was all animals that had been hunted by a man named sheets and some amazing shell art done by his wife who collected shells while he hunted.
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Sue
non-member comment
Great
You two sure have some interesting times on these excursions! Have fun, be safe. hugs Sue and Frank