Road Trips and Hike Reports

Sikeston was a brief overnight, not a destination.  Still, between the novel dinner the night before and the surprisingly great breakfast place the next morning, we could do worse.  Except in terms of weather. The cold rain was really coming down as we headed out of Missouri and into Illinois on US-60. The goal for the day was to get to the state park in KY.  But the lousy weather made Harrah's casino in Metropolis IL seem like a good diversion.  It was a fun stop over and we got on the road in time to do what needed to be done.  Strangely, in the 3 years I lived in TN, my visits to Kentucky were always near I-24 or I-65 or maybe once or twice along US-31.  I had never had any reason to go very far on Kentucky's parkways.   As I understand it, when the Interstate system was being planned, Kentucky didn't get nearly the network of limited access roads they hoped for and the parkways were their solution to filling out the road network of KY.  This trip included travel on s

This post is almost a month late. We finished our time in New Orleans up and headed off the day Jim flew home (MLK day).  The first leg of our journey was through the swamps and oil fields along US-61 to Baton Rouge.  Baton Rouge was almost a ghost town but it had a nice peaceful feeling to it which was the perfect antidote to NOLA.  We have but one lame picture from Baton Rouge.  We did the 1.5 mile long loop along the river and back which was enjoyable. After the river walk we hit the riverboat casino which was just down the riverfront from where we parked.  The casino was enjoyable and we were there a surprisingly long time without spending very much money.  I think we left as winners.  Like the rest of downtown BR, that casino was darn near empty while we were there. Leaving New Orleans we took endless US and state roads north including many miles on US-65 in Louisiana and Arkansas.  Arkansas seemed endless going from South to North.  It was pleasant and easy driving