When Kaskaskia, Illinois, served as the first state capital in the early 1800s, its population was somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000. Today, the population is fewer than 25, and the only way to access this Mississippi River town is through Missouri. Only accessible through Missouri? That curiosity alone made us want to check it out.
Read moreWatch as Connie walks through the Mississippi River. She and Skip are at the Mississippi River headwaters in Itasca State Park, near Bemidji, Minnesota. The 2,552 mile Mississippi River begins here as a small stream flowing from Lake Itasca.
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In this podcast, we wrap up our Great River Road adventure. We start in Dubuque, Iowa, and travel south through Fulton, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. Then we move on to our last stop, the Quad Cities. Read more
Welcome to the inaugural Midwest Wanderer podcast! As we traveled the Great River Road from the Mississippi River headwaters in northern Minnesota to the Quad Cities, we summed up our daily activities each night in a podcast. We turned the first two recordings into videos while we traveled and posted them on Facebook. But that required late nights, and after two nights of five or fewer hours of sleep, we decided to record and wait until we got home to publish them. So here we are, with the first four days of our Quad Cities adventures. Rather than videos, we’re presenting them in podcast format. Read more
The weather on the last day of our trip was rather gloomy. Since the skies looked like they could open at any time, we skipped traveling on the Channel Cat Water Taxi. Instead, we started out at the John Deere Pavilion, where we checked out John Deere equipment, both modern and from the past. Afterward we enjoyed an early dessert at Lagomarcino’s, a family-owned ice cream and candy shop that has been open since 1908. Then back to the Rock Island Arsenal, to see the veteran and Confederate cemeteries, followed by a tour of Colonel Davenport’s home. Read more
Day 12 was museum day for us. We started out at the German American Heritage Center and Museum in Davenport. We went there specifically to see the temporary Steam Circus exhibit, but found the rest of the museum interesting, as well. Afterward, we visited the new Bix Beiderbecke Museum. Bix Beiderbecke, a Davenport native, was a popular jazz cornet player in the Roaring 20s. We finished our museum day with the Figge Art Museum, the major art museum in the Quad Cities. Later we treated ourselves to a Maid Rite loose meat sandwich. Read more
