Paducah 
Paduuucah. Pa-duke-ah.
Paducah. What a great name. It is just a little – 25,000 people – county seat town in Western Kentucky. There are more than 1500 cities in the U.S. that are larger. But I am guessing that at one time or another you have probably heard of Paducah and, reading this, you most likely recognize the name Paducah. 

William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame laid out the town and named it. Somehow that seems like a pretty good pedigree to me. In its past Paducah has been a riverboat town and a railroad town. Today Paducah is a county seat and a nifty little river town with an artistic bent and part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. There is an artists' co-op, an active theater community, and a number of museums, including the National Quilt Museum. The downtown area is filled with little shops in early 20th century brick buildings. 

The city lies at the precise point where the Kentucky River flows into the mighty Ohio. Long barge tows move past the town every day. In 1937 the Ohio River reached a flood height of over 60 feet and effectively closed the town for about three weeks. After that catastrophe the Army Corps of Engineers built a flood wall for Paducah.

Lemons to Lemonade
The Paducah flood wall along the Ohio and Kentucky rivers protects the town when those waters rise. But the wall is an ugly 15 foot high ribbon of concrete that completely blocks the town's view of the river. In the 1990s Paducah finally got tired of looking at a concrete slab. The city commissioned artist Robert Dafford to paint murals on the flood wall depicting the history of the Paducah area. Now the flood wall is a mile-long work of art. I took a few pictures, but I also found a YouTube video taken with a drone which gives an overall view of the wall and its murals.

The flood wall murals not only gave the citizens of Paducah public art for all to enjoy, but the murals also became a tourist attraction, bringing visitors into the city. Ugly concrete to art. A city eyesore to a tourist attraction. Lemons to lemonade.

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts
There are a number of small museums in Paducah, but there is also one of major importance, The National Quilt Museum. Quilts? Really? Yeah. Really.

Let me assure you. These are not your grandmother's quilts. These quilts are works of art. I was astonished by the first quilt I saw and spent almost 10 minutes talking about it with a docent, learning exactly what makes a quilt a quilt.

A quilt is made up of three layers, the backing, a middle layer of batting, and the top layer or face. The design of most quilts is made up of discrete pieces of cloth sewn together with incredibly precise stitches, although some quilts have a face of a single piece of material. Those quilts depend on the stitching alone for their design.

Look at the two photos below. These are not Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Straw Hat and Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. These are quilts. Quilts made of an incredible number of seemingly random bits of cloth painstakingly sewn together with fine tiny stitches. Click on a photo to see the phenomenal detail of the quilt.

Not all the quilts in the museum were like this. These happened to be in an exhibit of a particular quilting artist whose work totally fascinated me. There were many more traditional looking quilts on display as well. If you like art and appreciate fine craftsmanship, this is a great stop. 

As a matter of fact, if you find yourself in Western Kentucky, Paducah is a great stop. Our next time through we will plan to spend more time in this interesting little town. For now, our next stop is Carlyle Lake in Illinois where we will spend a few days before crossing the river into Missouri.
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Our First St. Louis Stop
Carlyle Lake is a Corps of Engineers campground on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, just about 35 miles from St. Louis. We like public (federal, state, etc.) campgrounds. They "tune in" to nature and the campsites are generally wooded and private. Their major negative is a two-week limit for a stay. So we end up being local nomads, for want of a better term, moving from campground to campground while visiting St. Louis. Carlyle Lake, not really close to the kids, is our first stop on this trip.

The day's trip was a pleasant ride through the southern Illinois farmlands, We were surprised to see cotton fields, but there were plenty of them. Some were ready for harvest, and they were so white they looked as if there had been a snow-fall the night before. It was as though we were still in Louisiana or Arkansas.

We pulled into the campground on Friday afternoon, got settled in and rested up. Saturday was to be a busy day at the orchard picking apples.

Apple Picking
With fall finally here, the air has turned a little cooler and crisper – perfect for picking apples. Eckert’s Orchards on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River has to be the Walmart of apple-picking. There are untold rows of apple trees, pumpkins are piled high and hay bales are scattered about. Hundreds (thousands?) of cars are in the parking lots. Families are milling everywhere. Apples and pumpkins are truly in danger – they are going to be picked and carried away.

Here’s how it works. At a booth you pay a small entrance fee, get your hand stamped and grab some bags for your apples. Then you get in a Disney-like serpentine line and wait for a tractor and wagon that will take you to the apples. You get on the wagon and ride to the orchard. The tree rows all have signs with the apple variety grown on that row. You want Braeburn apples? Look for the sign and hop off the wagon.

Once you are off the wagon just walk down between the trees picking apples for your bags, maybe munching on one as you go. If you want another variety, just walk down a couple of rows or wait for a wagon to come by. You will end up with heavy bags and more apples than you need. 

On your way back from the orchard, you might want to jump off at the pumpkin patch to select the perfect one for a jack-o-lantern. When you finally get back from the orchard, get in line and pay for your apples (who knew you had 12 pounds in your bag?).

You can head back to your car, but, hey, why not stop in the store for some fine foods and gifts. Let’s see. Apples. Pumpkins. Applesauce. Apple butter. Apple this. Apple that. Do you have everything? Great! But don’t leave yet. Have lunch in the restaurant. And if the kiddos get a little antsy, there is a small playground with a slide that goes through an old John Deere harvester.

Eckert’s Orchards. Apples for everyone. Walmart on the farm.

Soccer
What could be better than some Sunday soccer? Sounds good, right? You bet. But it is even better when the soccer players on the pitch are three- and four-year-olds. 

This is soccer at its finest. Kids kicking soccer balls. Kids not kicking soccer balls. Kids paying attention. Kids doing other things. 

Some very nice, caring young dads volunteer their Sunday mornings to teach the rudiments of the sport to the kids. Somehow they have the knack to keep the little ones reasonably focused and engaged. They practice kicking and dribbling and maybe some other skills. Then there is a short game. The kids get exposed to the sport, and the mothers learn to be soccer moms early on.

We'll be back soon with some stuff about the Mississippi barge tows and some other things. See you then!

Howdy!
It is good to be back!

​It's been a while – 10 months actually – since I have written a post for Travels With Linda. It's not that we were hiding in a cave or anything, it is simply that life sometimes just gets in the way. For us, this was a good thing – the birth of our third grandchild. We spent the three months of spring in Missouri helping take care of the twins (just three years old) while our daughter gave birth to their baby brother, Benjamin. Then it was home to recuperate – it's hard for old folks to keep up with three year olds.

So after summer at home in Texas catching our breath, we are now on a fall road trip that will include a few weeks with kids. We are meandering up through the Lower Mi​ssissippi River Valley. We spent two nights on the Arkansas River, and right now we are beside a small lake in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Our next stop is Paducah, Kentucky on the Ohio River.

Our planned start was delayed for several days as the Houston area was recovering from tropical storm Imelda. While all of the Houston area experienced torrential rains and flash flooding, the hardest hit areas were to the east and north of the city. As a result many of the main roads leading to Louisiana were still closed after the storm with flooding or flood-related damage.

Living Large at the Eat-a-Bite
When traveling in the motorhome we try to stay off of the highways when we can, and we try to stop overnight at public parks rather than commercial RV parks. These include national forests, state parks, and Corps of Engineers parks. The scenery generally beats looking over the parking lot of the Hampton Inn. Sometimes convenience does rule our choice such as our regular stop at the RV park for the Coushatta Casino.

Our third night on the road was spent at the delightfully named Chemin-A-Haut state park in Bastrop, Louisiana. We took advantage of a needed run to the local Walmart to have dinner at the Eat-a-Bite restaurant just across the street from the county courthouse. We mix in local restaurants with the chain eateries when traveling as we try to keep our cooking to a minimum. And as travelers rather than campers, we are not into cooking on a grille. 

Tire Man
On our way from Chemin-a-Haut to the Pendleton Bend Campground along the Arkansas River, we went through the town of Back Gate – you don't get town names like this along the Interstate – and happened upon Tire Man. Is it any wonder we like to avoid the major highways?

We spent two days at Pendleton Bend, a Corps of Engineers' campground right on the river. We all like a water view, and Linda engineered it so we had one of just three campsites right on top of the levee. Super! We enjoyed watching both the fisherman and the commercial river traffic. And to make things perfect, there were also beautiful sunsets.

The park is located just down the road from two river barge ports; one port is for soybeans and the other handles grains and fertilizers. Tucked in along the river bank were empty barges waiting to be filled. I watched a towboat move down past us and return with one of the empty barges. I surprised it took them only a few minutes to move the barge out from the riverbank, make it fast with lines, and move it into place to be loaded.

Watching Work on the River
I looked out the window and saw a towboat, the Frances Ann, going by, so I grabbed my camera and went outside for a photo or two. Well, the Frances Ann was going to retrieve an empty barge from along the riverbank to take to the loading port. The whole process took only minutes. The four pictures below show the towboat heading toward the barge, moving the barge from the riverbank, and then moving back toward the loading port. Click on any photo to see them full size.

Craighead Forest Park
Now we are in Jonesboro, and this town has an absolutely super city park. It is almost 600 acres of woodlands with a lake at its center. There are all sorts of facilities, including the RV park where we are staying and enjoying another water view. Next we will be on our way to Paducah, Kentucky.

We like to go to Galveston Island State Park, and we particularly enjoy it in the late fall and winter. We especially wanted to make sure we got in a visit before year's end as the park is scheduled to close early in 2019 to be rebuilt. It was severely damaged and lost almost two-thirds of its Gulf-side campsites as a result of Hurricane Ike some ten years ago (the wheels often move slowly in Texas). 

When the cooler weather sets in, the Gulf of Mexico seems to change. The sky gets lower and always appears to be a bit overcast while the Gulf's water looks almost as if it were liquid pewter. To me, the island is almost a totally different place from that sunny beach playground of summer. We walk the beach; we tour the island; we look for birds.

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One of the birds we looked for is the Sandhill Crane. Sandhills summer and breed in the north – mainly Canada and Alaska. Then they migrate across the Great Plains to winter in New Mexico and along the Texas coast. Unfortunately while these birds like open fields and can be easily seen, they also seem to like being far, far from the road. At the Galveston Airport Linda counted a group (called a construction) of 52 cranes! Alas, they were so far from the road that without binoculars we couldn't even be sure they were cranes. Oh well, photos will have to wait until next time.

A Busy Body of Water
We wandered up to East Beach, the absolute eastern tip of Galveston Island where you can see the ships moving in and out of Galveston Bay on their way to the Port of Houston. The port is the country's largest in foreign goods and second largest overall, and ships are continually moving through Galveston Bay and into the Houston Ship Channel.

Often you can see ships anchored in the Gulf all along the coast waiting for their time to move into the port. This day I counted more than a dozen ships crowded at the east end of Galveston Island, each waiting for their turn to enter the bay on their way to being shepherded into the port. The orange ship is empty and riding high, heading into the port. The blue ship is fully laden and riding low in the water, heading out into the Gulf to parts unknown.

Mark Twain has nothing on us. For the past couple of weeks we've been enjoying spending time enjoying the land and sites along the Mississippi. We've seen a lot of different and sometimes weird stuff – everything from the World's Largest Catsup Bottle to the locks on the big river to an air show. 

The Confluence
The photo above shows The Confluence, the point where the Missouri River – Big Muddy – converges with the Mississippi. It wouldn't be wrong to consider the little bush in the water on the left side of the photo to be the dividing point for the two rivers. We have been to Lake Itasca in Minnesota and the headwaters of the Mississippi and we have been to the river's delta in Louisiana. Now we have added Big Muddy to our Mississippi experience.

It was from the confluence that Lewis and Clark began their journey westward in May of 1804. But the courses of both rivers have shifted over the years, and at that time the confluence was some two miles from where the rivers meet today. The picture above is a panorama composed of seven shots stitched together. Make sure you click on the image to see it across your computer screen. Below is Linda looking out over the rivers.

Cahokia Mounds
While we were staying on tne Illinois side of the river, we visited Cahokia Mounds, the archaeological site for Cahokia, the largest city in pre-Columbian North America. In the 1200s Cahokia was larger than London with over 20,000 inhabitants. At its peak it had some 30,000 to 40,000 people, and it wasn't until 1780 when Philadelphia's population passed 40,000 that a city in the United States would be larger.

The Cahokia settlement began in the 8th century and lasted some 700 years until 1400s. The Mississipian culture did considerable farming, and it is speculated that the city dwindled away as the land became "farmed out" and less able to support the population. During the time it was a major population center there was considerable trading with tribes from as far north as the Great Lakes and as far south as the Gulf Coast.

The most unique feature of Cahokia was its mounds. They estimate there were more than 120 earthen mounds over the 6 square miles of the city. The mounds were of all sizes and several different shapes. The largest of these is a huge hummock known as Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas. It is 950 feet long, 835 feet wide, and 100 feet high with over 130 steps. All those steps seemed like a challenge, so I took it and went to the top. Was I surprised! Standing on top of Monks Mound I looked out and saw a dramatic view of the St. Louis skyline and Gateway Arch some ten miles away on the other side of the Mississippi.

Some Fun Americana Along the Mississippi
One of the fun things about traveling is seeing the silly, strange, and unusual. In Alton, Illinois there is a statue to one Robert Wadlow, known as the tallest person in history. Wadlow died in 1940 at the age of 22. He was 8' 11" tall and weighed 440 pounds and never stopped growing.

​Reading about Robert's life, you can't help but feel sorry for him. While his family worked at giving him a normal life, his size never let that happen. Even though he was a normal size at birth, he grew rapidly and was already taller than his dad at the age of eight. The statue of Robert is perfectly life-sized. 

To make big things a bit of a theme, let's move on to the World's Largest Catsup Bottle. That's right. World's Largest Catsup Bottle. Who doesn't want to see this? The folks in Collinsville, Illinois are most proud of it and consider it a landmark. It is lit at night so it can be enjoyed at any time. 
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The bottle-shaped water tower was built in 1949 and was near demolition in the early 1990s when the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group – yes, the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group – began fundraising to save it. It was restored in 1995. Now the 170 feet tall catsup bottle has its own website, is visited by maybe tens per day, and has a place in the National Register of Historic Places.


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St.  Louis Air Show
This past Saturday we met up with April, Jeremy and the boys at the St. Louis Air Show. It was a gray and very chilly day, but we all braved it to watch all sorts of neat airplanes. In fact, it wasn't chilly, it was COLD! It was gray and sunless, and 50 degrees. Cold. The only saving grace was the lack of wind.

Linda and I have never been to an air show, so this was a new experience for us. We saw a B-29 Superfortress, one of only two still flying; current day jets including a performance by a plane from Canadian CF-18 Hornet demo team; and some great trick flying by the Phillips 66 Aerostar aerobatic flying team and an aerobatic biplane. It was all great fun, even if a little chilly.

MeeMaw's Bus
A week or so ago while visiting with the twins the boys became fascinated with a picture of our motor home that was on my iPad. So it became obvious that a visit was in order. 

The other day Jack and Tom showed up to check out MeeMaw's bus. There were many things to see and inspect, including the refrigerator, the bathroom, and the bed. They even saw the table and the sofa move as Pop-Pop moved the slide in and out. But the main attraction of the day was sitting behind the steering wheel and driving the bus.

Once again we are in St. Louis to see the Die Wunderkinder, Jack and Tom. They are just a month or so short of
2-1/2, growing great and as busy as can be. 

We spent a day doing some apple picking at a local orchard with the boys and April and Jeremy. The trees were heavy with sweet, crispy apples, and the apples were low enough for these little guys to reach up and pick. And eat. Each of them was able to put away a complete apple before heading to the restaurant to polish off a pretty good-sized lunch.  

We have lots of activities planned to do with them, and we are all very excited. There will be a trip to Purina Farms to see the animals and the dog show, and one day the boys will visit us at the campground and see MeeMaw and Pop-Pop's bus. They very much like buses – and other big vehicles like trucks.

From Arkansas we headed into Illinois and picked up the Mighty Mississippi, driving along the Great Rivers Road. Near Kaskaskia, Illinois, not too far into the state, we found ourselves on a bluff overlooking the river. So here is this trip's first really good look at Ol' Man River. 

The Zephyr at the museum is Number 9900, the first one built, and it has been fully restored both inside and out. It was delivered in the spring of 1934 – 84 years ago – by the Budd Company of Philadelphia to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (CB&Q) Railroad. It immediately captured the country's imagination with its sleek, streamlined appearance. In fact, fifty thousand visitors showed up to tour the train during a CB&Q open house shortly after it was delivered.

Everything about this train was different. It was stainless-steel, not painted. The cars were long and sleek, not dumpy and dark green. And there was no steam engine, but rather a stainless-steel, diesel-powered locomotive that was as smooth and shiny as the rest of the train. The Zephyr was a beautiful thing by any measure.

The long, low stainless-steel railcars were like none ever seen before, as different from the passenger railcars of the day as your flat screen TV is from a 1950s black and white model. The cars did not even have their own wheel sets or trucks. These railcars were articulated with connecting cars sharing a set of wheels. With the carbodies so closely coupled, the train looked to be a single entity rather than a string of individual cars. It looked like... well, like a silver streak.

A very nice young lady from the museum arranged for me to get in an hour early to take some photos before the museum opened. She also had the train's interior opened for me even though it is currently closed to the public as they are redesigning their interior exhibit.

The Zephyr is located in a long narrow hall constructed exclusively for the train during a museum renovation in the late 1990s.  It is three stories below ground level; the train was lowered into place by cranes, and the building closed over it. The long, narrow hall made it awkward to take pictures, and I was limited to few angles of the exterior of the train along with just a few interior shots. Nevertheless, it was a thrill for me. 

Allow me to take you on a tour of the three carbodies that make up this train, moving from front-to-back with a few photos and some brief descriptions. Please enjoy this short visit with the Silver Streak, which the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry calls “the train that would reinvent travel and design.”

Now that you have seen this special train from front to back, inside and out, let's complete your visit to the past. Imagine it is 1934 and you are lucky enough to be one of the 86 passengers on the Zephyr for its record speed run from Denver to Chicago. You settle back in a plush seat that is about 6-inches wider than today's airline seat and watch the countryside zip by and see the crowds gathered on hillsides and at crossings to watch the Zephyr race past. It takes just 13 hours for the trip. The Burlington’s other passenger trains — all steam powered — typically needed 25 hours to cover the same route. You are in Chicago almost before you know it. You feel as though you just experienced a new era of travel. And you did.

Today we are again in a completely different era – airplanes, Interstates and automobiles. But even with today's Interstate highways the Zephyr would have beat you to Chicago by 2 hours – even more if you stop for gas and bathroom breaks. And if you stay off the Interstates (after all, this was a land of 2-lane highways in 1934), then your no-stops drive will have you arrive more than 7 hours after the Zephyr.

The Zephyr-class trains sped across the rails for more than twenty-five years even after newer designs became the standard.  Eventually, inevitably, airplanes and cars took over travel in the United States, and passenger trains essentially went away. Sic transit gloria.

We hope you enjoyed your time on the Pioneer Zephyr. Thanks for joining us for the train ride!

This is as good a picture as I could get of this plaque attached to the side of the Zephyr. It cites its speed records which were set almost immediately after the train was delivered to the CB&Q. Below is the text of the plaque.

This year's road trip not only took us to Missouri to see the twins for their second birthday, but it lead us to an excursion to Chicago for a four day weekend. We went to Chicago not in motorhome, but by rail. We just thought it might be fun to do, travel by train. And it was fun to do. But it was also painfully obvious that the Golden Age of Rail is from long ago and far away.

We had a great time in the City of the Big Shoulders – who doesn't like Sandburg's wonderful poem? We went to a museum; we went on a boat tour; we ate at a real restaurant; we overpaid real money for real small ice cream cones. We did it all. We even did Hamilton. Well, we didn't actually see the show (not at $400 per), but we did stay in the hotel that is over top of the theater where Hamilton is playing. That's pretty good.

Anyway, here are some highlights from a boat tour of the Chicago River and an evening's stroll about the streets.

Up to the Rooftops
While in Chicago we took an architectural boat tour of the city, cruising the Chicago River with our heads tilted up listening to our tour guide. Chicago is a lovely city, and it was a delightful tour. When it was over we left the boat with both a new appreciation for these tall buildings and slightly sore necks.

The photos here are representative of what we saw on the tour. I did not label them because, honestly, I can't remember the names of many of them. That's okay because while some have recognizable names such as Wrigley Building or Sears Tower (although actually the Willis Tower these days), most just have some sort of generic label such as 100 South or some other banality.

So without names or labels to worry about, take a trip through town on the Chicago River and enjoy looking up at some of the city's skyline and the tops of some of the more iconic buildings and architectural wonders. I promise you won't get a crick in your neck. Just rest your cursor on the photo and slideshow will begin. Enjoy!

The Art on the Sidewalks
Like most large cities, Chicago celebrates art, not only in its museums, but with sculptures and mosaics and murals outside, in its parks, and along the streets and avenues for everyone to enjoy. 

Many pieces of art are on the streets, in front of buildings, not in a park or other special place. Picasso, Miro, Chagall, Calder, and Dubuffet. Works by these artists, along with those in Millennium Park were all within a short walk of our hotel. Here are some photos of the wonderful stuff I saw on my evening's stroll.

​The Four Seasons
This mosaic, The Four Seasons, by Marc Chagall wraps around all four sides of this rectangular box. It is 70 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 14 feet high and made up of an untold number of pieces of glass and tile. I would love to go back sometime and try to photograph the entire piece in panorama showing all four sides as a single long strip. This piece was a short two blocks from our hotel.

Everything in this little mini tour was within 10 blocks of our hotel. Obviously we didn't even begin to scratch the surface of the wonderful things to see and visit. Chicago. It sure is a neat place to visit. By nature, I am not a fan of being in a city, but I could go back to Chicago.

Read the quote again. Waiting for a school shooting is becoming the norm for our youth. Can you think of anything sadder? I don't think I can.

​So, yes, it has all happened once again. The 16th school shooting this year – that's more than three shootings per month.

Three months ago – February 14 – seventeen were shot to death at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Today it was ten killed in Santa Fe, Texas, a mere 31 miles from our house.

So all the rhetoric and posturing will now repeat itself.

The president will issue a statement offering sympathy to all and expressing his concern for these continuing tragedies. He will say this is all very sad and everyone will be in his thoughts and prayers. And then he will do nothing,

All the politicians will issue their statements as they have done for the past 20 years. They will all use the same words and phrases to tell us that the victims will be in their thoughts and prayers. Texas Senator Cornyn has already done so. And then they will do nothing. And nothing will change.

And there will be the intransigents. Those who will think anything, say anything, do anything so they don't have to face reality. Certainly the NRA. But others also. Consider the Texas Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, who, while having everyone in his thought and prayers, has already said that the problem is that schools have too many entrances and exits. So maybe we can solve this whole school massacre thing by bricking up doors. 

​Summer is near, and school will soon be out. There will be a hiatus. But ​next fall another school year will begin. And no one will have done anything. And nothing will have changed. And it will all repeat itself – again.

Everyone will be in my thoughts and prayers.