Oct 21 Charleston, WV to Chester, VA

WE ARE HOME!  We drove over 10,000 miles without an incident or accident.

Rebecca, thanks (Annie too)

 Stopped at New River overlook.  This was a few miles form the NR bridge and considered a better spot.  We enjoyed watching an occasional falling leaf rise on the thermals

We stopped at Carter's Mountain Orchard outside Charlotttesville for a few apples.  They grow a variety of fruit and grapes.  Pretty big spread - with a view

Oct 20 Petersburg KY to Charleston WVA

We visited the Creation Museum in Petersburg KY.  This museum is focused on bringing the Bible to life.  We walked through engaging settings of Bible history. Thee was a special effects theater, dinosaur exhibits and a bunch of other stuff.  the part I liked was the numerous presentations of how scientific observations fit within a Biblical framework.  So far as I was concerned the bible does not need defending this way. Now that I've experienced the museum and some of the research that went into it, I think this is a good way to Love god with our heads as well as our hearts.

Here is a presentation of God's plan with which I was unfamiliar

 

Photo of frog from which the poison for darts is taken.  The frog does not produce the toxin when in captivity away from native diet.

Here's one of the many settings used to communicate Biblical accounts.

  

here is Beth crossing the swinging bridge in the botanical gardens

Now we are at Comfort Inns in Charleston.  Beth has finagled a free upgrade from room to suite

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Oct 19 Elizabethtown to Petersburg KY

Today we are in en route to the Creation Museum.  We are visiting horse and bourbon distillery sites for which Kentucky is famous.  We stopped for a tour at Makers Mark.

  The tour guide told  about the family tradition, the development of the recipe and marketing, and showed us the process equipment and steps.  The bottlers (personnel) broke for lunch just as our tour entered.  That lady with the hand/arm protection would have been dipping bottles to apply the red wax seal that signifies Maker's Mark

Our guide describes  barrel preparation and  warehousing

We then visited the Kentucky Horse Park which is an educational theme park and museum.  It is a working horse farm and is about all kinds of horses.  There were top race horses there, some with winnings well into ons ($).  There were life sized bronze statues of Man O War and Secretariat.  

These guys have nice places

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Oct 18 Collinsville IL to Elizabethtown KY

Today we visited Abe Lincoln's boyhood homesite in southern Indiana.  We learned a few interesting things about his childhood family besides about how he learned by firelight.  Example: as a young man, he built a rowboat and earned as much as a dollar a day ferrying folk tou to boats passing in the Mississippi.  Ferry cmpanies tried to stop him by charging that he illegally ferried.  In court, he argued in court that he did not carry folk across the river - only to the middle of the river.  The judge saw it Abe's way.  Little is known about how the boyhood home looked.  Considerable search and excavation turned up ramains of a chimney and foundation.  A bronze memorial of these was made and placed there.

the paekdid have a farm setting of how the buildings may have looked

We then passed through Santa Claus IN.

 This town has the only Santa Claus Post office in the world, and it has the worlds first (1946) themed (Christmas) amusement park.  (Predates Disney by 9 years)  The park has world class water rides and wooden roller coaters.

Oct 17 St Louis MO to Collinsville IL

We went to the Jefferson National expansion memorial whose best known feature is the Gateway Arch

 

 

Views  looking down from top of arch 

and among other offerings, a nice museum 

We then visited remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico are preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. This is currently the largest archeological site in North America.

that crack in the windshield is a memento of earlier in our trip

Cahokia museum houses hundreds of artifacts form the site along with diorama to interpret Mississippian life 

Cahokia had been the largest city in North America until Philadelphia reached 30,000 residents (Mississippians). Mississippians of Cahokia had wooden pole versions of something like Stonehenge.

  The site is best known for its mounds which were the largest earthen structures north of Mexico

there's significance evidence that they did human sacrifice.  I'm fixin to climb the Monk's mound where you would have found the big poobah

Tehy had a calendar along the lines of Stonehenge.  Theirs is dubbed Woodhenge.  Couldn't get it all in the photo

Oct 16 St Joseph MO to St Louis

After lunch at Mark Twain diner (great root beer float).  Here is Beth by Tom Sawyer's fence.

Mark Twain Museum area included several houses.  Below is Becky Thatcher House

Samuel Clemens Father Joseph was justice of the peace.

Here are several old buildings in Hannibal business district.

Here's the waterfront today

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Oct 15 Lincoln NE to St Joseph MO

We went to Squaw Creek National wildlife Refuge.

  We saw muskrat mounds and a variety of water fowl
 

 

 Then we went to the Pony Express Museum.  Beth is sending off the first rider toward Sacramento 

Oct 14 Ft Morgan CO to Lincoln NE

From Ft Morgan east into Nebraska flows the South Platte River along I-76.  It's marked by the strip of trees about a mile away.  A local road runs parallel on the far side of the trees.

Just outside of Ft Morgan, we see several of these signs over 10 miles CORRECTIONAL FACILITY - DO NOT STOP FOR HITCHHIKERS

Are we into Nebraska yet?

We saw four of these

wind turbine propellers.