Presidents and Indians

Monday, June 6, 2011

Today was the day we started the journey back to Bedrock.  We dashed up several of the Missouri alphabet soup roads to route 63, had bronto-breakfast burritos in Rolla, on up 63 to Columbia, then turned left on I-70 at Columbia.  Independence Mo. and the Harry S. Truman National Historical Site was our first stop.  We went to the VC which is located in an old fire station to get all of the passport stamping out of the way.   The VC had a very nice video presentation on the President as well as his family.  Grandson Athos is travelling with us, and we got him all fixed up with a NPS passport book and his first six stamps at the VC.

Athos, Barney, Wilma and Fred at VC

The Truman Home

The next stop was at the Truman house, which is actually the family home of his wife Bess.   We didn’t take the tour but did get some photos of the exterior of the house.  From there we went to the Truman Presidential Library and Museum.  The exhibits were very interesting.  The replica of the Oval Office when Truman was president was very authentic right down to the small screen, console  model TV and the black Bakelite rotary telephone.

The Truman Library

Replica of Truman's White House Office

 






The museum is very large with lots of memorabilia and several cars. We even had a pop quiz before leaving.  The pictures tell part of the story.  You might not be able to read the header above Athos and the President that says “They continue to shape American life today.”  Since Truman is gone, that leaves Athos. What will we come to!

Athos and the President

Barney under the Rubble-mobile

When we left the Library and Museum the Rubble-mobile failed to start.  One of the mounting bolts had fallen out of the starter and the other was loose.  We tightened the remaining bolt and got it going.  We figured it would work till we could get a bolt and get it installed.

We headed up I-435 then I-29 to Mound City.  We were headed for Big Lake to spend the night but found out that it was closed due to flooding.  We crossed the Missouri River at Rulo, NE. and looking over the Nebraska end of the bridge it was very apparent that there was still a lot of high water near the river.  We headed north and finally found a place to camp at the Indian Cave State Park.  It was well after 10:00 pm by the time we finally got the caves situated and crawled into bed.

This is when we were looking for a campsite

This is when we finally got to bed

We found out the next morning that some areas of the park were closed due to high water.  We were fortunate that the camping area was not flooded.

 It was a long but enjoyable day.