Road Scholar Trip - Day 4

We took our very first Road Scholar Trip titled "Mark Twain and the Mississippi, Lewis and Clark and The Civil War".  The draw was Mark Twain but all of it was wonderful.

See Day 1 here, Day 2 here, and Day 3 here.

Day 4 was devoted to Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens  We boarded a bus, a different one from the day before, and traveled to Hannibal, MO.  We got to meet Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, and tour Samuel Clemens' boyhood home.  There was a wonderful museum in town.  Lunch was on board a riverboat with a ride then on the Mississippi River.  After we returned back to the hotel that evening we had a trivia game on the topics we had learned about.  My team won!

Here are some photos from this last full day of our Road Scholar trip.

These two were 8th graders part of several teams that reenact a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

This was supposed to be the home of the family that was the basis of the Huckleberry Finn character.

Inside the Clemens house.

The Thatcher home.

Our riverboat.

Leaving the dock for a ride on the Mississippi..

Sun was bright but breeze was strong and cool.

One of these islands figured in the Tom Sawyer story.

 Friday after a speaker on Guerrillas in Civil War Missouri we headed home stopping at the Indian Mounds in Illinois.  More on that in another post.  

Road Scholar Trip - Day 3

We took our very first Road Scholar Trip titled "Mark Twain and the Mississippi, Lewis and Clark and The Civil War".  The draw was Mark Twain but all of it was wonderful.

Day 3 of our trip took us over to Illinois to the site where Lewis and Clark wintered before setting out on their trip west.  The camp has been recreated as has a settler's cabin from that time period.

In the afternoon after a lunch on the main street of St. Charles, we were to have a narrated bus tour of St. Charles. Unfortunately the bus we had was belching exhaust and our guide turned the engine off.  Well, the reason the driver had the bus running was that it wouldn't start without jumper cables so as we awaited the repair truck the costumed guide gave us the tour standing on the street.

From there we walked to the Lewis and Clark Boat House and Nature Center on the Missouri River.  Afterward the rest of the day was our own.

Camp Dubois - winter camp

The re-enactor took a different slant to the Lewis and Clark saga especially concerning Sacagawea's part in it.  I don't think any of us listening agreed with him.

At the Lewis and Clark Museum (my only photo) Dan is standing under a cutaway of the type of keel boat they took up the Missouri with every nook and cranny packed with supplies.

Views of the Missouri from the museum.  We could see this river from our hotel room.

Sorry no photos of  charming St. Charles, MO.  The two mornings I took walks down the Main Street I didn't take a camera.

You can see some here.

Road Scholar Trip - Day 2

We took our very first Road Scholar Trip titled "Mark Twain and the Mississippi, Lewis and Clark and The Civil War".  The draw was Mark Twain but all of it was wonderful.

Day 2 was a visit to WhiteHaven, home to Ulysses and Julia Grant and then after lunch to the Jefferson Barracks, the oldest military installation west of the Mississippi River.

Here are the photos I took this day.

Looking out at the house after the movie screen lifted.

The Park ranger was a fount of information on Grant, his wife and her family.  It was her family's home and they were slave owners.

Road Scholar group of 24 listens intently.  

The color was researched and it was painted that color when Julia and Ulysses came to own it.

There are very few furnishings since there are none in the Park Service possession that belonged to the Grants.

You can see that it was a gorgeous day.

Back view of house gives a sense of the many additions over time.

[I took no photos at the Jefferson Barracks.]