ST JOE, MO!

Wow, it's Tuesday, June 15 already! Time is really going fast. We left Alma, AR at 9 on Saturday and arrived at the Beacon RV Park in St. Joseph, MO about 3:30 in the afternoon. THERE ARE NO REST STOPS BETWEEN ALMA, ARKANSAS and KANSAS CITY!!!!! We finally found a little town about 12:30 on Route 71 that had a big enough area that we could pull in with our trailer and get diesel and then sat out a heavy rain storm and ate our lunch in their driveway. About 1:15 we left and continued on our way. We were pulling through Kansas City and I saw a billboard for Hy-Vee, a wonderful grocery store chain out of Des Moines, IA. We were excited! It's our favorite hang out when we're in the Midwest. We were hoping to find one in St. Joe. It would have been a 50+mile to commute back to KC for breakfast -- not likely!

Found Beacon with no problems, got checked in and escorted to our site -- very end of the row, by the exit to another street. Good points: SHADE!, clean bathrooms with showers, nice laundry, close to everything! (Only 6 blocks to the HY-VEE grocery store!!!!) Bad point: It's downhill, so when they forecast flash flood warnings on Saturday night, we were more than nervous, having just read about the flash flood in Arkansas! Found a church a mile away so headed to Mass, then to HY-VEE for Saturday night dinner.

Sunday found us awake and reading at 5:00 a.m. as the severe storm they had been predicting was hitting -- it thundered for an hour non-stop. No flooding here, but there was some in Kansas City and in Oklahoma. St. Joseph must be taking care of St. Joe, MO! We acquainted
ourselves with the town, checked out the mall, and planned our Monday.

We toured the St. Joe Museum, which had exhibits on the plains Indians, a Black History of St. Joseph, and the Glore Psychiatric Museum which described mental illness, its treatments and its perceptions, as well as how treatments have changed over the past several hundred years.

Today we visited the Patee house Museum which included the Pony Express headquarters of 1860-61. It's a fabulous museum! We were there from 10:00-2:30 this afternoon. Besides the usual displays, there's also a 1941 carousel and the last home of Jesse James. He was killed in the livingroom of the house. So much to see! Stay tuned!