Hot, Hotter, Hottest and 2 posts in 1

Current Location: Dam West COE Campground (el 675 ft); Carlyle, Illinois
Previous Location: Cape Camping and RV Park (el 390 ft); Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Pictures are a combination in this post. Some are Nokia Lumia Icon 929 Cell Phone others are Nikon D5100.

Route thru current stop #3

I've sort of fallen behind with making posts to the blog. I don't have any reason other than laziness. As you can see, this is two posts. After I left Tom Sawyer's Campground, I headed north into southeastern Missouri. Specifically, Cape Girardeau, Missouri. That is the town I lived in when I was 16 and 17. I camped here a couple years ago and wrote a pretty good blog post about it which includes the time I thought I was going to die. This link will take you to that post. It will be easier reading the rest of this post if you go to the link first:

gozatravels.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-river-will-tell-you-your-future.html 

I road around town a little bit and saw the old places but not any of the old people. Red Star Baptist Church looked as if it was deserted. I'm not sure it is even a church anymore. I sat for a while in the parking lot and just looked at. In it's heyday it drew teenagers and adults from all over. I could visualize us teenagers all over those front steps, laughing and joking and feeling good about ourselves and the church. It was a special summer, that summer of 72. We teenagers were exposed to good and evil that summer and I'm sure it tempered all of our lives.

Campsite at the COE Park. 

After leaving Cape, I drove north into Illinois and am currently camped in a nice Corps of Engineers Campground in Carlyle. My plans were to come here for 4 days while exploring the ancient Indian ruins of "Cohokia". It was the largest Indian settlement in North America. But like so many others during that time of 1000 to 1300 AD, most of the people just abandoned it and moved on. That information is what got me interested in seeing the place. However, the high temperatures kept me away. This area is in the middle of an extreme heat wave with temperatures approaching 100 degrees with heat indices in the 110 to 115 range. Too hot for me to be wandering around some old Indian Mounds. I'll keep it on my list for the next time I'm in the area. 

One great thing that I did do was have lunch with an old friend from high school. If you read the link above, you will recognize his name as being Mike Jones. The guy who went with me to Red River, New Mexico when we were 17 years of age. It was the first time we've seen each other in over 43 years. We had a nice lunch and got caught up with each others lives and relived many memories. It was a very good time.

Sorry there weren't many pictures, but most would have been repeats from the link above.

Tomorrow is moving day and it will be another long one. I planned to break it up into two days but changed my mind and will just drive. It will be a little less than 500 miles and I hope to get an early start. I've checked the weather forecast and I should get behind this stationary front that is keeping it so hot and humid around here. The prediction is to have temps about 15 degrees cooler within a couple of hours after leaving tomorrow. If all goes as planned, I'll be sleeping in an Ohio State Park on the shores of Lake Erie tomorrow evening.

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.