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.

Harvest Monday & What The Vegetable Garden Looks Like

Stop over with Daphne to see what other gardeners are harvesting.

I've been getting some lovely salad greens all last week and on Mother's Day Sarah used some of the tatsoi in a oriental soup.

Love these scissors from Pampered Chef for cutting up lettuce.

Use these snips on herbs - 4 blades cut them fine.

Greens in salad spinner - also a handy kitchen gadget.

Sunday's harvest.

Here's the vegetable garden this morning.  Last week I finished putting down the plastic mulch.

My spinach is the biggest I have had in a long time.  It's Regiment Spinach.

This bed has tatsoi, two kinds of lettuce and two kinds of bok choy.

These lettuces I grew inside and transplanted so much larger than seeded.

Garlic doing well, though bed needs weeding.

Another bed with garlic and varieties of lettuce.

So far the voles have not found this second sowing of snow peas.  Bok choy there too.  I will pick some of them tonight along with spinach for beef sukiyaki.