Mississippi Vacation - Part 1

We just returned from our annual trip down the Mississippi. This is our 4th summer following the river from beginning to end and seeing all the dams and sights as we go. We traveled from the Quad Cities in Iowa/Illinois down to the Canton Missouri. My daughter keeps wishing for a trip to the tropics – finances just don’t allow that. We travel and camp along the way. It is sudo camping with a pop-up camper with air-conditioning and all the amenities. I am just getting too soft to sleep on the ground.

We never know what adventures will come about as we travel different towns in this huge country or ours. And that is really part of the fun. We drive “the Great River Road” which is as close to the Mississippi River as possible. Hats off to those of you that live and grow all that corn. You feed the world. I just don’t know that I could do that. I am definitely a city girl – wanting my retail conveniences close by.

The first state park that we stayed at was right on the river – actually between the river and the train tracks. We were awakened by the train horn a couple times a night. The kids slept through it, but the adults just couldn’t. The only requirement in a camping site is that they have flushing toilets and showers. Like I said, we don’t really rough it when we camp, but you can’t pass up $18 per night instead of over $100.


Our first stop for tourists attractions was finding our dams. You can’t really tell what side of the river they are on. We have seen many barges lock through dams. This year we got to take a tour inside the gates of the dam and see how it all works. That was truly fun! My kids know more about how dams work than most people do. Who said that family vacations can’t be educational.

We try to throw in some fun days and found a water park with slides and then went to see a water ski show. The water ski show was pretty amazing. They did a trick where 4 skiers went all the way around the boat. Amazing.

This post is already long enough. I will tell the story of our raccoons in the next post.

Thanks for reading.