Thursday, August 11, 2011
First stop for the student driver: Ma & Pa’s Kettle, Cameron, MO, for a bit of home-style cooking…
Dad took over the driver’s seat to get us to the Truman Presidential Library in Independence…
Then it’s on to Springfield for a little miniature golf…
…where Dad repeatedly rescued a ball from the water…
At this hole, we discovered the secret was to purposely go INto the water:
Did you find the ball in each picture?
We made it to the hotel by 8pm… in time to watch the GOP Presidential Candidate Debate. The younger kids went swimming with Miss Artist …until the pizza arrived : )
Friday, August 12, 2011
Friday morning we enjoyed breakfast with lots of friendly folks at the hotel, Tim shopped for groceries for our picnic lunch, and we headed on out to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield… where we turned around and went back up the road to a neighboring piece of ground… Where it must be legal to carry and fire a gun. And sleep overnight in a tent. Go figure.
We tried to position ourselves for a good view… The shaded hill was unfortunately off-limits to observers.
I have lots of pictures of the folks standing in front of us ;-)
The Cattleman wished he’d brought along his binoculars. Earplugs would have been useful too. The Computer Geek toted his fold-up chair for me. We also had an umbrella and sunscreen, which I didn’t get around to using. {duh} But it was great! …and has me wishing we could do Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg with their 150th anniversary celebrations…
The actual battle at Wilson’s Creek (‘Ten Oaks’ according to the Confederates) took place on August 10, 1861, from about 5am to 11am… slightly down the creek from where these reenactment photos were taken.
When the wagon appears on the field, the battle must be over… Time to pick up the wounded and haul them back to camp.
One of my goals in visiting southern Missourah was to meet my blogger friend Conny! I’m feeling very “arrived” now in the blogger world ~ ha ha! Our families had a good but quick visit getting acquainted after the battle. Conny’s family had the exciting position next to a cannon ~ even louder!
Miriam thought it was a great show! : )
After meeting Conny & family, visiting with a volunteer soldier from South Dakota (who still had gunpowder on and in his mouth from biting the bullet!), and making a few purchases… we said good-bye to our new real-life friends and moved on to the actual battlefield for a picnic lunch.
There were lots of these butterflies around the park!
The strudel bites were a great success ~ We did have sandwiches first ;-) Deli meats and cheeses on a croissant ~ Yum. Isn’t my hubby a great provider?!
We took a tour through the Visitor Center and the Civil War Museum before taking the driving tour through the actual battlefield.
This is the Ray House ~ While his family took shelter in the cellar, Postmaster John Ray watched the battle from his front porch. The house served as a Confederate field hospital that day. But they also served wounded Union soldiers ~ Brigadier General Lyon’s body was laid here before the Union’s Major Sturgis claimed it and had it carried into Springfield for it’s first burial. (According to the park guide, he was buried twice in Springfield before being relocated to his home state of Connecticut.)
The five-mile automobile tour road (red line on map) enters at the top left corner and goes to the right around the ‘circle.’ The Ray House is at stop #2. Bloody Hill is stop #7, where most of the fighting took place. There are trails to hike at several of the stops ~ We opted to follow the trail at Bloody Hill to see General Lyon’s marker.
Photo credit: Miss Music Box took most of the pictures while we walked the trail at Bloody Hill, so I added a watermark for her. : )
While we all might have liked to have returned to the hotel for a swim and another good night’s sleep, it was time to begin our return journey home.
Miss Music Box had spied several roadside markets selling peaches on Thursday, so it was our goal to find one again on our way home. We reached Gordon’s Orchard Farm Market just south of Osceola, MO, about 6:15pm. It looked pretty quiet, but a car was still parked outside. The hours on the door stated they closed at 6:00pm. The owners came out the door as Tim met them to ask if Kate could please buy some peaches? Sure. Five minutes later we left with a half-peck of peaches and a watermelon ~ and an invitation to come back soon.
Yum. Oh my. I picked the prettiest of the peaches for the picture above. They really weren’t huge or overly good-looking. But they were certainly fresh-from-the-tree delicious! The last of them went into the pie. All gone. :-\
Back to last Friday… As we headed toward Kansas City, we decided it was supper time. We needed something fairly quick… and decided the kids should experience a real drive-in restaurant like Sonic! And we stopped at the Sonic in Peculiar, Missouri, no less.
Except we decided we needed to get out of the van and sit at their outside tables : ) Sorry, no pics of us enjoying our loaded burgers, hot dogs, fruit slushies, and more!
{insert all sorts of fun pics from the Sonic website… deleted since I had an upload error… and it didn’t even solve the problem}
Just in case you’re curious about how the City of Peculiar got it’s name, here you go:
In pre-Civil War times the pioneer settlers decided their drowsy, maple-shaded hamlet ought to have a name. After several sessions in the general store they narrowed the choice to three names, but couldn’t settle on any one.
All three names were sent to the post office for consideration. All three were in use elsewhere. They decided to appeal directly to the postmaster general, agreeing to let him make the final decision. ‘We don’t care what name you give us,’ they said, ‘so long as it is sort of peculiar.’
