Independence

It is hard to escape the shadow of Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States, when you visit Independence, Missouri.  We spent 2 nights there on our way west.  Since we had been here before, we didn't visit any of the Truman historic sites.  But the Campus RV Park is right on the edge of downtown Independence so that is where we went on our daily walks.  There is a statue of Truman in front of the Jackson County Courthouse in Independence.  Truman had served as a judge in that courthouse.

Especially after completing his two terms as president, Truman and his wife returned to Independence, where he took long walks.  Those walks became well-known and so both the statue above and flags on city streets show him striding forward.

Clinton's Drug Store in town is where Truman first met Margaret "Bess" Wallace, who he married in 1919.

This beautiful house is now the Serendipity Bed and Breakfast.  We passed it coming and going from the RV park.

This old home is Overfelt-Johnston House, built in 1850.

Also dominating your view is this spire atop and temple of the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

If we ever return to Independence I would enjoy going to the National Frontier Trails Museum.  The town was where pioneers who traveled the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails organized and bought the supplies.  It must have been quite a place each spring in the first half of the 1800s.

History Museum

This is what our weather looked like for the first few days we visited St. Louis.  It meant we looked for indoor sites to explore.  One day we walked in one of the malls and we made a couple of visits to stores like Walmart and Target.

Another day we decided to visit the Missouri History Museum.  It is located on the edge of Forest Park, a beautiful wooded area in the city.  We would have loved to walk there but is was too windy and cold.

Forest Park was the location of the 1904 World's Fair, held.  Most of the fair building were removed and the area was kept as open space and park land.  One section of the museum is centered on that fair.  We have never been to a world's fair but if another one is held in this country it might be interesting to check it out.

This display shows what the well-dressed fair-goer wore in 1905.

The fair highlighted peoples and cultures from around the world and recent technological advances.  Manufacturers displayed their labor-saving products like this cream separator and carpet sweeper. 

Above the display was this image of the Bissell company store.

This stunning cut glass punch bowl was made especially for the fair.  It must be very heavy to pick up.

Apparently the Israel display was the most visited of those highlighting areas outside the US.  The Philippine Islands display was also very popular. People who represented those areas and other participants, like those from Alaska, were required to remain in their native dress any time they were on the fair grounds.  That was very tough during the summer months for the Eskimos in the fur-lined clothing.

This photo is a view through a window showing how the land had been cleared to prepare for the fair.  They obviously cut down a lot of trees and even put a section of either a river or canal underground to make space for the fair.

Another gallery in the museum addressed Route 66 through Missouri.  Cars and trucks and trailers traveled along the Mother Road.

This is an interior shot of a very early Airstream trailer.  I'm glad ours is larger and more modern.

I am standing outside that Airstream.

Those travelers needed convenient places to get a meal along the route, leading to fast food restaurants like McDonald's and White Castle.

Travelers who didn't have a trailer needed a place to sleep, bringing about the development of motels--motor hotels.

If you click on the photo below you can get a good view of how prices have increased from 1930 to 2015. It looks like homes have gotten more expensive in comparison to other items.  However, they have also gotten larger.  The price of a gallon of gas has also changed significantly.

We explored one other gallery in the museum, the Civil Rights display on the African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis. It was very interesting--and very crowded and noisy. Somehow neither of us took any pictures there. It was definitely worth our time to see it.

St. Louis Cathedral Basilica

There are hardly enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe the beauty of the mosaic-decorated interior of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, which we toured yesterday.  There are 83,000 square feet of mosaic art created by 20 artists and installed over a period of 75 years.  Construction of the cathedral began in 1907. 

The mosaics were created with over 41,500,000 pieces of tile in more than 8,000 shades of color, including gold.  This is a view of the main altar and includes the baldachino or canopy above the altar, resting on marble pillars, and the ceiling dome illustrated with images of the 12 apostles.

This is one of the side chapels, the All Saints Chapel, I think,   Below is a close-up of the altar in that chapel.

A basilica is a church that is designated by the Pope in part because of it's beauty.  Pope John Paul II designated this cathedral as a basilica.  These churches have symbols of  papal authority including this umbrella or conopaeum and the small bell or tintinnabulum below which is used in the procession when the Pope is present.

The floors are beautiful mosaics, as well.

And this is part of the Italian-inspired geometric ceiling panels.

There is a recasting of Michelangelo's Pieta outside one of the chapels.

This is one of the newer mosaics in the ceiling depicts Jesus teaching his disciples.

This view of the ceiling is in the All Soul's chapel.  Three bishops from St. Louis have been named cardinals.  The cardinals' caps are hanging from their ceiling there.  They will hang there until they totally deteriorate.

Another of the mosaic pictures.

One of the ceiling domes.

The altar in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.

Crossing Missouri

If you combine rain

a lot of green

some limestone walls

and many, many cows

and throw in the giant Mississippi River and it tributaries

you will have a good idea what our trip across Missouri was like this week.

We have seen a lot of cold weather and cold rain over the past week or so. The wind and cold and rain began while we were in Tulsa. We cancelled our plans and reservations to go to Branson because of the threat of more rain and flooding in that area. The rain you see on the first photo above was falling Saturday in Tulsa.

Of course it takes a lot of rain to bring out all the green fields and leaves we saw as we crossed Missouri.  Coming from Colorado and spending our winters in Arizona, all the green is a delightful change.

We had no idea Missouri had so many cattle ranches.  The fields we passed as we drop east on I-44 were full of cows.  Maybe we were driving in Mooosouri!

The limestone hills and walls seen in this part of the country are so picturesque.  Of course the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers get most of their water from snow melt and rain. 

We also saw a farm that had camels as we drove east.  Our GPS doesn't understand that Missouri names county roads with the letters of the alphabet.  When it told us to turn onto Missouri MM we were told to turn on "mo millimeter."  We really laughed at that.

We also saw a sign on the back of a septic tank pump-out truck that read, "Yesterday's Meals on Wheels."

We get most of our weather news from the internet, so we surprised when we saw on the local news while we were in Springfield, MO, that there was a lot of flooding east around St. Louis.  In fact I-44 was closed at Lebanon due to flooding.  When I call the Missouri Department of Transportation on Tuesday morning before leaving Springfield, it was suggested we drive north to I-70 and take that road in to St. Louis.  The detour added about 100 miles to our drive.  We are now just east of the state line and the Mississippi River in Cahokia, Illinois, for a few days.  It rained most of the day and will do so again tomorrow.  We hope we don't have to figure out too many more detours.  But the good news is we haven't been caught in rising water and have traveled safely.

Only 3 More Days

Finally, our weeks of waiting may be over on Tuesday. Hopefully, our new RV will be at the dealer's lot in Chanute, Kansas, and we can sign the papers, pay some, or rather a lot of money, and begin moving in. We have been so excited ever since we received the email yesterday giving us this tentative time table.

We have made good use of our time while waiting. In addition to doing genealogy research and watching the barbeque cook-off, we had the truck serviced and got our flu shots. These new trucks are great. It is no longer recommended that we change the oil every 3,000 miles and the oil life is about 7,500 miles. The truck's computer lets us know the oil life remaining and warns us when we need an oil change. Given the cost of an oil change in a diesel truck, changing the oil less often is great.

We have seen some interesting places as we moved from Indiana to Illinois and through Missouri and Kansas.

One morning we woke up to fog as the sun rose in Anderson, Indiana. We don't see fog very often in our travels.



In Illinois, we stayed at a Corps of Engineers campground on Carlyle Lake. There were lots of sailboats in the marina.



And we saw one set out across the lake.



That was also where many of the campers had strung party lights. I lightened the photo so you could see the RVs as well as the lights. All I can do is ask, "WHY?"



I think this was the dog walk in our Columbia, MO, campground. We don't have a dog, but we did enjoy the small landscaped area.



We visited Lecompton, Kansas, the first capital of the Kansas Territory. This building is Constitution Hall. In this building the first proposed constitution of Kansas was written, proposing that Kansas allow slavery when it became a state. It was approved by the people, but only because the election wasn't fair--many Missouri "ruffians" came across the state line to vote in favor of it and the anti-slavery members of the Kansas residents boycotted the balloting.



As you can see, after the capital was moved, the building was used for other purposes over the years before it was preserved as a historical building.

This is the historic one-room Lanesfield School in Kansas. This is the second school built here. The first was built in 1866 and this building was constructed nearby in 1903. Before either of these structures was built, the first school opened in the house belonging to John's great-great grandfather, William Gans.



School children, especially 4th graders, visit the school on field trips. Cursive writing and penmanship are no longer taught most places. When the students visit the school, one of the activities is penmanship. The young man conducting the classes said it is the children's favorite activity. Here are the ink bottles they use. When did you last write with a fountain pen or quill pen?



One day we stopped in a large mall in Kansas City. It has probably been six months since we were in a mall. What a change from small town and Walmart shopping. We even saw this carousel there.

Generations of Family

Today, we met John's cousin Susie and her husband Jim at the Olathe, Kansas, Memorial Cemetery where two of their great-great grandfathers, two great-great grandmothers and a great-great-great grandmother are all buried. Two of those graves are not marked, but we know where they are.

Susie and Jim drove from Iowa, we had just a 40-minute drive from Peculiar, Missouri. We'd all have to journey back in time 108 to 134 years to take part in the funerals of the folks whose graves we visited today.

Here are John and Susie, are standing by the headstone marking the graves of a great-great grandmother and a great-great-great grandmother. Rebecca, born in 1803, died in 1888. Her daughter, Mary, born in 1831, died in 1881.



Great-great grandfather Ray, a Civil War veteran, is buried next to his wife.



Several other Wiswell relatives are also buried here, as are the great-great grandparents named Gans and some of their children. Those are the unmarked graves.

We understand the following photograph is called a selfy. Don't say us old folks can't keep up with the young kids. This was taken in the parking lot after a great, lingering lunch with hours of good conversation at the local Applebees.



It was a great day. We had fun exploring past generations with other members of our family. And we are enjoying spending time exploring Kansas where at least four generations of ancestors lived in the 1800s. Years ago, when this journey into our past began in earnest, we had no idea how important Kansas had been in the family history.

Kids Cooking

Since time began, mothers have been teaching their daughters to cook. In modern times, fathers tend to teach their sons how to cook on the backyard grill. We saw all that taken further Saturday at the kids bbq cook-off at the American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City. We watched the competition begin and these girls, ages 10 and 11, choose spots right in front of where we were standing. They were assisted by their dads and used supplies and recipes provided by an aunt who owns a barbecue restaurant and was participating in the larger competition nearby.



The meat was brought in for the contestants.



There were really good-looking steaks for contestants 11 and older.



And ground beef for the younger entrants.



Adults were there to assist, but they were not allowed to touch the meat. If they did, the child they were helping would be disqualified. The adults help set up, used sharp knives to cut and chop, and lit the charcoal with large blow torches.



Some of the children seemed to really be into the event, wearing appropriate (?) clothing.





We saw several, anxious to get started, preparing their presentation boxes with lettuce leaves or parsley before they even received their meat.



Soon, the burning coals were place in each grill.



And it was time to prepare the meat. The 11-year-old girl in front of us injected a butter mixture into her steak.



Other steaks were covered with a rub or other coating.



Burger patties were formed.



The butter-laced steak received a topping of chopped onion and was placed on the grill.



We didn't stick around for the rest of the competition, but there really is hope that the younger generations will keep the barbecue restaurants of the country in operation.