MIAMI, OK and EASTWARD

This is the first leg one of a longer trip as we are headed for Nova Scotia and the Maritime Provinces but allow me to digress a bit for those interested.  We left Camp Newell last Wednesday, before the long 4th of July weekend, got out before Newell shut down on Thursday, a day ahead of Friday the 4th.  We headed for St. Louis as it was an easy drive across Missouri on I-44 and we put down north of St. Louis in Illinois at at KOA near Granite City.  Not the best place we ever stayed but convenient and OK for us.  Here are a few highlights, highly recommended for your consideration.

1 - Grant's Farm and the Budweiser Clydesdales.  I won't go into all the details but we definitely found it worth the time.  Those beautiful horses are so spoiled but they earn it, either by pulling the wagons or being in commercials or just being there for us tourists.  There are three "hitches" in different parts of the United States to take care of different regions of the country.  One is housed in St. Louis at the brewery, one in Merrimack, New Hampshire where the training facility is and one is in Ft. Collins, CO.  The breeding farm is in Boone, Missouri, west of St. Louis by a hundred miles.
Learned a lot about these gentle giants and Budweiser's investment in them.  Also got four small, complimentary bottles of beer!

2- Springfield, Illinois for Abraham Lincoln's home, museum and library and the Dana-Thomas house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  For either you history buffs or friends of architecture and design, including furniture for one of Wright's early prairie houses (1902-04), don't miss a trip to Springfield if it's within your reach.

3- Dayton, Ohio.  This is close to my hometown so we stopped here for some more 4th of July celebrations including fireworks and family time.  And today, we're off to the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson near Dayton.  Then we're headed to Cleveland and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.  Good stuff and I will catch you up on these two and more later.  Want to keep these posts within a reasonable length.

Note:  Miss I-70 through Indiana if you can.  The road was so bad that we bounced loose several things including a few drawers and the plug to our front TV and can't find were to put it back in!