I Went Camping With Five Girls!

I’m not kidding, I did.

In my truck camper.

Five nights.

I have pictures.

It was me, The Boss, The Boss’s Sister (TBS, for short).........

And the other three girls were of the feline variety.

Before you scoff at this, try to imagine how hard it must be to keep five females of any species happy while living in a small box for five days.

Well we did it, and it was a great trip for everybody. We left home happy, we came home happy, and there’s already talk of the next trip.

Here’s TBS with the three cats. She’s a cat lover too, fortunately. Kahlua is in her lap, Selina is next to her, and Dixxie is on the floor.



The trip highlights were: Hannibal, MO for some Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain stuff...Springfield, IL for some Abe Lincoln stuff....and Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, also in Illinois for some pre-Columbian Native American stuff.

We spent our first night at a COE campground on the St. Francis River in AR.



Selina started the trip a little cranky at times because she could smell unfamiliar cat smells on TBS and her luggage, so she just KNEW that there were “The Others” hiding in her clothes somewhere. She was growling at everyone, including Dixxie who’s her BFF.

This was right after growling at me!



Selina is the closest thing to a feral re-domesticated cat we’ve ever had. She was an orphaned kitten that we got when she was only a week or so old. We bottle fed her and took over the role of “cat mom”. Sometimes, I think we failed miserably. Almost everything about her has a uniquely “Selina” twist to it. She’s also our biggest cat, and our most easily frightened. Not a good mix. Trips to the vet with her are always exciting. She tells me my blood type is T+ (very tasty).

She settled down after a short time though, and became her normal self.

Sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat........Poop.



We spent a day in Hannibal visiting all the usual places. We parked on the street near the visitor center, then took the self-guided walking tour. That’s me down the street on the left side.



The walking tour, museum, lunch, and some gourmet chocolates took most of the day.



We parked overnight at the campground associated with Mark Twain Cave and Winery, and went on a cave tour the next morning.



This is a fairly dry cave, with only a few formations. It’s a very large cave with miles of tunnels though, and it would be easy to get lost in it. There are many old autographs and inscriptions in the cave, including Sam Clemens and Jesse James, both authentic.



The only bat we saw, and it was in the entrance tunnel.



Went back in to Hannibal to do more sightseeing. Visited the lighthouse that has a very steep approach road.



Looking down on the town.



We left Hannibal and headed towards Springfield, IL. Spent the next two nights at Sangchris Lake SP.

Getting ready to grill some burgers.



The next day we visited Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery. The bust in front of the tomb is a bronze prototype of Lincoln’s head by Gutzon Borglum prior to the creation of the Mount Rushmore monument.



We then visited the Lincoln home and neighborhood, and the Lincoln Museum that’s nearby. Nothing is open in the Lincoln home historic site due to NPS COVID-19 restrictions. There were still plenty of interesting things to walk around, look at and read about.



There’s a famous picture of the house with Abe and Tad outside taken from this spot.



Dixxie likes to view things upside down. I think this was before either of us had our coffee one morning.



From there, on our last day we headed to Cahokia Mounds Historic Site near St. Louis.

Looking straight on at Monks Mound. From Wikipedia: “Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates from 900–955 CE.” Cahokia was abandoned by about 1350.



Side view of Monks Mound.





Nice little camper on that old green pickup. I don’t know what those guys are doing digging up the place. Probably plumbers digging up a leaking pipe. They should put some cones out. :W



Not as steep as the steps on some of those Mayan temples in Mexico, but steep enough.



That’s St. Louis off to the southwest.



The obligatory selfie. I got the T-shirt, too.



:):)