Out West trip Day One

As part of homeschool enrichment, we took a 3 week trip across the western US, at first loosely following Lewis and Clark's expedition up the Missouri/Ohio and Mississippi rivers, then branching off to see various National Parks and other areas of interest.  For this trip I'm going to show one day at a time because there is a crazy amount of photos.

Day one was one of the longest in terms of how far we drove.  Left home around 8am.  Drove up past St. Louis to our first campground northwest of there at Quivre River, MO. (pronounced Kweever)

This is the whole trip.  I suggested making each day a different colour but somehow that task was too demanding...

Hmmm, seems like we're starting out on the wrong foot.  Are we going the wrong direction?

Ohio River

Confluence of Mississippi and Ohio

Our first Lewis and Clark reference

At Cairo, we stopped briefly at the painted wall.  This wall is actually a barrier for when the Ohio (or I suppose even the Mississippi) river might flood.

Confluence area

A very large tree along the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau

Interesting architecture

Downtown somewhere (Cape Girardeau?)

Really people?  Just had to take this one of a misplaced toilet.

Ah, at last we see the familiar arch.

Courthouse building

Look at the SIZE of this thing!

Under the arch is a wonderfully comprehensive museum depicting the expansion of the west and specifically of Lewis and Clark.  While there we were fortuitously able to watch the documentary of their trip west and got an interesting overview.

Campsite 1 - Quivre River, MO.  The hottest and most humid of all the places we stayed!