Travel

The Four Covered Bridges of Missouri

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I’m sorry I didn’t come up with a more creative title. It had so much potential and I just…..

Anyway.

So I had a four day weekend at the end of July/beginning of August. Perfect for an adventure!

Except.

I was looking into several destinations…. I was looking at my monthly budget… I was looking at the weather forecast for pretty much everywhere in a twelve hour radius…

No money? We’ll camp! One hundred degrees literally everywhere in the nation??

Okay, so we’ll adventure right around here then. We started talking options- Shawnee National Forest is one of my FAVORITE destinations, so we were looking at that. But ultimately, we decided to do something that Kareem had never done before- see all the covered bridges in Missouri!

Is that not that exciting to you? Well, we combined it with lots of side adventures and seeing people we hadn’t seen in a long time. It was delightful.

More about that part later. Right now- B R I D G E S.

The first day, we headed north. This is not a direction we head very often. In fact, Kareem has questioned me as to why we do not. Well, he found out that day. While northern Missouri may have some charm, it is mostly flat and everything is really far apart and far away. This particular Friday, however, it was within reach! And we really saw a lot of it.

The first bridge we visited was Union Covered Bridge State Historic Site. This bridge is near Mark Twain Lake in northeastern Missouri. There are no amenities at the site. This bridge is particularly pretty, all white and lovely. There is a low water bridge next to it that is in use today. It makes for a lovely background noise of water rushing over the bridge and rocks.

This bridge is very heavily surveilled with cameras everywhere. It also is the scariest bridge in my opinion to walk over. The slats are loose and you can see between them. I was a little nervous, but I did it both ways.

Unfortunately, I was checking out the low water bridge, and poor Kareem slipped and fell down a mud ledge making his way down there. His poor phone totally ate it in the mud, as well as his pants. Sad face!

The next bridge is the only one I had never been to. Locust Creek Covered Bridge State Historic site is located… well, I’m not really sure. It’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s between Macon and Chillicothe off Highway 36. Not far from Marceline.

Anyway, you will pull off onto a gravel road and go for a while. It will be the only thing off the gravel road. You will not be able to see the bridge. There is a small parking area, if you could call it that. There are no amenities here. From there, you cross a pretty wooden bridge (not the covered bridge!) to a trail that is a little over a quarter mile that leads to the bridge. It made for a very lovely walk.

Once we arrived, the bridge is stunning. It no longer traverses the creek, as the creek was rerouted at some point in the twentieth century. This really adds to the beauty and serenity. The creek is nearby, and you can explore this whole area.

There was a man on the bridge when we arrived which surprised me. He was a conservation agent (actually, an intern) studying bats. There were TONS of gray bats living in the bridge. The man said not many people visit the bridge, which did not surprise me. He said that in the evening, the bats all fly out of the bridge around sunset. I really wanted to watch, but unfortunately, we were there early and had to be moving on.

The next day, we headed to southeast Missouri, also known as God’s country around here. 🙂 We stopped at the popular and frequently visited Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site. This is a gorgeous red bridge that crosses a creek. There are restrooms and picnic areas at this site.

We spent most of our time here in the creek. We only saw one other family here. This is a popular spot with my kids, and we have visited several times, often on the way to other places. It’s along highway 21 in the gateway to the St. Francois Mountains.

Next, we continued south and we visited Bufordville Covered Bridge. This bridge is part of Bollinger Mill State Historic Site and is the oldest of the covered bridges remaining in Missouri. This site has restrooms and picnic areas, as well as a historic mill which you can tour. There are also some shops right across the street. It is about a half hour west of Cape Girardeau.

We toured the mill and enjoyed the river and the tall pines at this site. The bridge was very dark and very gorgeous. This one was the oldest and the coolest in my opinion. I remember visiting here as a kid and thinking it was amazing, and it definitely aged just fine for me because I still think it is amazing. We toured the mill while we were there as well. There was some construction around the site, so some of it was not accessible. I remember seeing the builder’s initials carved into stone, but we couldn’t get up to that. Maybe next time!

It was fun experiencing these with Kareem. I had seen all but one of them before. It was a cool Missouri tourism item to check off our list as well! And we got to visit Hamilton (info about that here) and a bunch of places and pals along our way as well!

These covered bridges are true treasures. I’m so grateful that somebody in Missouri in the 1970’s had the passion to protect them. Beautiful pieces of history and pride for us to glimpse ways of life in the past.

Watercolor Wednesday: Hamilton

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Last week, I discussed Let’s Make Art.  I wanted to tell you about my recent visit to them.

While we were traversing our beautiful state a couple weeks ago, we found ourselves in a part of Missouri we rarely venture to- the Northwest.  We visited Hamilton, Missouri- self-proclaimed Quilt Town, USA, but also universally known as the Disneyland of Quilting and the Quilting Capital of the World!  It is also home to Let’s Make Art, the art company I mentioned in last week’s Watercolor Wednesday post.  

Hamilton is a delightful small town with a population under 2,000 but with many, many quilt shops.  It’s the home of Missouri Star Quilt Company, which is a HUGE quilting empire.  There are tons of YouTube quilting tutorials from them as well.  Let’s Make Art is a sister company of theirs, as I understand it. Anyway, speaking of tutorials, that’s how I got turned on to Let’s Make Art!  And that’s how we ended up in Hamilton!

Hamilton greeted us with a large, cheery mural- one of several in town- and the phrase “find your happy” was everywhere. 

We immediately visited Let’s Make Art, where we were greeted warmly.  I got to “tour” the “studio” where they film the YouTube tutorials, and they proudly showed me their YouTube award- it was super cool! 

The shop was a beautiful space as well, and we browsed for a long time.  I did get a cool acrylic kit that I am looking forward to doing this weekend, and we just had a great time talking to the Let’s Make Art people (new Insta friend!) and browsing.  Kareem is so cute- he’s like, buy everything!  Get whatever you want!  🙂  

After our Let’s Make Art time, we strolled the town and stopped and had a soda at the sweet shop.  At this point, we were kind of shutting the town down- most of the shops close at 5 pm.  The boyhood home of JC Penney is in Hamilton as well, and it is not far from Kansas City.  So if you are looking for other things to do or to add Hamilton in to another trip, it is easy to do.  

On our way back to the car, we stopped at a table a family had set up to sell their sweets, jams, honeys, and produce.  I got some cherry jam (my absolute FAVORITE!) and some hand pies, and Kareem got some goodies too.  Then we drove about half an hour/forty minutes east to Macon where we dined with a good friend’s daughter who lives in Kirksville.  

So I will leave you with this on a fine watercolor Wednesday.  This is the Let’s Make Art watercolor artist’s oath, and she starts every tutorial with it: I promise to be kind to myself.  I promise not to compare my work.  I promise to have fun.

Pretty wise advice for both watercolor and life. 

Check out their tutorials here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzzCo7lZGJ-sTCgpI7BJKEg

Grand Ole Opry

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We were supposed to go to a music festival on our recent Carolinas trip.  It ended up not happening (dang it, COVID), so I found a different musical experience for the kids.  On the way home, we spent a night in Nashville.  In the morning, we toured the Grand Ole Opry!  

You are familiar with hearing this from me at this point, but I wasn’t sure if the kids would be interested in this or like it.  I wasn’t sure how engaging a tour of a theater would be, especially to young people who don’t have a historical context for it.  However, Nick is the self-proclaimed biggest Dolly Parton fan ever and Lucy dreams of being a singer, and I know a guy who could help us out, so on a wish and a prayer, we went to the Grand Ole Opry for our early tour.

It was incredible. I cried multiple times.  All the kids freaking loved it.  My girl realized her dream of being on stage at the Grand Ole Opry!  

We stood outside the theater for a little while because we were early and on the first tour of the day.  The tour guide greeted us.  She was very enthusiastic and friendly, very knowledgeable, and I was very impressed with her.  Our children were the only children on the tour lol.  

The tour began with a video which Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood “host.”  It was an immersive experience, and the set up of the room made it feel very intimate.  This is when the tears began for the day- hah!  This was a great orientation video and helped the kids understand more about the history and significance of the Grand Ole Opry.  

We got to tour the stage where they filmed Hee Haw, all the beautiful dressing rooms and the “living room,” and backstage… everywhere we went, the tour guide shared really great stories.  At one point she asked if anybody had any questions, and Nick raised his hand.  She goes, you have a question?  He said, no I have a statement.  I was thinking, oh man… Then he says, I just want to say that Dolly Parton is the most magnificent singer of all time.  And of course, everybody in the place started clapping and cheering in agreement!  Hah!  So after that, everybody loved Nick of course.  

The last place we went was backstage which ultimately led to the stage.  They really set this up nicely, so you felt deep reverence for the stage itself.  Each person had a chance to stand on stage and visit the “circle.”  They have a circle of wood from the original stage of the original theater where the Grand Ole Opry was live on air that is laid into the floor of the current theater where they have performed since 1974.  This was the best part of the tour for sure.

Lucy was very excited to visit- she had been talking about it for a while.  She went first, all by herself.  She held the microphone, but she did not sing.  🙂  They took a wonderful photo of her.  Then we all went out.  Nick took a chance and did it by himself as well.  It was a beautiful moment!

We then walked up to the back of the theater for another lovely view of the stage, then exited through the gift shop of course where I snuck a couple of gift purchases for the kids.  

All in all, once again, another experience I wasn’t sure about, but that the kids (and we) loved!!

Congaree National Park with Kids

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Congaree National Park was an absolute treat.  I am always looking for National Parks to visit on our trips, and I came across this one about halfway between Charlotte, NC and Charleston, SC.  Perfect!  As I started researching, I found that it is regarded by many as one of the most underrated national parks in the system.  It really offers a lot more than you might expect from a national park with virtually no roads through it! 

The park is located near Columbia, SC.  It is some of the tallest deciduous forest on Earth and the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States, according to the NPS.  

We opted for hiking as our choice activity, as we only had a few hours for our stop.  But you can canoe, kayak, and camp here as well.  There are even canoe trails!  They offer frequent ranger-led activities too, and a great junior ranger program, which we did while we were there.  

We started with a picnic at the picnic area outside the visitor center which was as fun as it looks here- hah!

Attitudes improved once they had some food and got amped about the cool hike! It’s amazing what a little food, rest, play, and water will do for a person.

We did the Boardwalk Loop Trail which had a really cool “tour” pamphlet associated with it.  You can also get this digitally if you prefer.  It was super informative!  Between that and our Junior Ranger activities, we learned a ton!  🙂  While planning this trip, I read that the boardwalk floods from time to time, so check before you go.  We also spurred off on another trail- I think it was the Bluff Trail.  Gorgeous!

The park is swamp and forest.  On the Boardwalk Trail, you will see the river floodplain, an oxbow lake, swampland, and hardwood forest.  It is incredibly diverse landscape over a few short miles.  The loblolly pines were our favorite thing to say on the hike, and we loved seeing and hearing lots and lots of birds and animals.  

We had visited Jean Lafitte National Park and Preserve in March, and it had swampland too.  The kids noticed similarities and differences to that one, and it was really fun to hear their observations.  Lucy said it looked like a fairy forest, and I quite agree. 

The kids all earned their Junior Ranger badges! They take this pretty seriously, and the activities were really great for discovering plants and wildlife on our hike.

It was a great way to spend the Sunday afternoon.  We followed it with pizza at a classic dine in Pizza Hut and then drove straight to the ocean- more about that here.  

Exploring Historic Charleston with Kids

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Whenever we go on vacation, as you may know from my previous post, I try to find things that are free or low-cost.  It’s also important to me that we all experience the uniqueness of the destination.  While putt putt golf is fun and entertaining, it’s pretty much the same everywhere.  So our list usually includes historic and cultural sites so that we can appreciate where we are in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Charleston has a lot of history and a lot of culture, so we were excited to explore!  The first morning we were in the city, we took time to walk around the historic area of the city.  We also made a few stops, including visiting the historic Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon.  This building has been there since 1771, and it is currently a historic site revolving around the history of colonial Charleston and the American Revolution.  Many American revolutionaries were imprisoned in this dungeon.  

You can enter for a small fee.  Kids under 6 are free, and kids under 12 get in for $5.    They offer a combo ticket of this and the slave market museum, but we took a hard pass on the combo due to the ages of our young children.  It is open everyday.  

You are free to explore the main and upper floors of the building, and there is a guided tour of the lower level (the dungeon!) offered.  The people who work here were dressed in period dress and were very excited to have children visiting, so they were very enthusiastic and welcoming to our family.  The kids got to sign a copy of the declaration of independence, and at the time we were there, there was a man doing a musket demonstration.  George Washington visited here and held a big party in the ballroom, so that was an exciting point of interest for our older boys.  There was a lot to see and learn about regarding the American revolution.  We haven’t gotten to visit many revolutionary historic sites, so this was especially interesting and fun for us.

There were also a number of models of historic ships that really piqued all of the kids’ interest.  We went down to the dungeon for the guided tour.  This was a very informative and entertaining tour.  There are also exposed old foundational city walls to see down here, and there were many stories of brave and loyal American revolutionaries that were very intriguing to our older kids.  Jimmy lost interest and became somewhat disruptive, so we took a break.  He was tired, as you can see, but he did well the rest of the time at the place.  We were there for a couple hours.

We walked around the city and got to see the famous rainbow row.  We visited the pineapple fountain as well of course.  Charleston is a beautiful city, and it was a treat to just take it all in.  The kids noticed differences between home and here, and they asked lots of good questions about why it was the way it was.

The city has a big historic market called the City Market which is also open daily.  We had lunch across the street from it on our city day.  It was very lively and busy!  There were many people weaving and selling seagrass baskets, which we came to see pretty much everywhere we visited.  

Our first morning getting acquainted with Charleston and its history and charm was delightful!  We were so happy and grateful to be there and excited for what was next!

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