March 12, 2025 • 60 mins
Join me, Patti Hunt as I explore the the hidden gems along the Mississippi River with expert guest Dean Klinkenberg, author of Road Tripping the Great River Road. Discover breathtaking destinations, rich history, and must-visit spots for RV travelers along the mighty Mississippi. Dean shares insights into the best scenic drives, charming small towns, and top cultural and natural attractions along the river. Whether you're planning a full road trip or a weekend getaway, this episode is packed with valuable travel tips and recommendations.
Dean Klinkenberg MississippiValleyTraveler.com Email: dean@travelpassages.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you ready to discover the hidden gems along
the mighty Mississippi River?
I'm Patti Hunt and you'relistening to the RV Life Podcast
.
My expert guest today is thehost of the Mississippi Valley
(00:20):
Traveler and he is here to sharemust-see destinations along the
mighty Mississippi River.
Now, Dean, tell us why youdecided to explore the
Mississippi River.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I really got familiar with the Mississippi I guess
you could say it got its hooksin me when I was a college
student in La Crosse, wisconsin,and I spend a lot of my time
sort of brooding and thinkingand trying to calm myself by
biking down to the river forsome quiet time.
And over the years I've justit's impressed me so much with
the depth of history representedalong the river, with the range
(00:58):
of natural beauty.
Basically you can have justabout any kind of experience you
want to have anywhere along theMississippi.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And I am so excited.
I have very little experiencewith the Mississippi River, so,
if you could hear my voice, I amso excited to hear the things
that people can see and do and,like you say, the hidden gems
along the river.
I traveled for those people whoaren't familiar back and forth
across the country three and ahalf times over a more than
three-year period of time.
(01:32):
I was full-time on the road andI don't think I spent any time
being near the Mississippi Riverexploring any of that.
So today, after listening toyou, I know I will have places
to add to my bucket list.
So I'm so grateful you are onthis show with us.
The RV Life podcast was createdto entertain, educate and
(01:54):
explore the RV lifestyle, and itis my mission to inspire you,
my listener, to live life to thefullest.
Let's talk first about OpenRoad Resorts.
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(02:18):
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They are featured parks and youcould check out all of the
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You don't have to listen to me,you don't have to listen to
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Just check out the reviews.
The people who've stayed atthis park are leaving incredible
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(02:39):
campgroundsrvlifecom or youcould go to openroadresortscom
Today.
Dean Klinkenberg, did I saythat right?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You nailed it.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I got it.
Names are you know, I'm workingon them the Mississippi Valley
Traveler.
You've spent two decadeschronicling America's mightiest
river, from Minnesota's pristineforest to the saltwater swamps
of the Gulf Coast.
He mixes library research withconversation in local bars and
(03:15):
coffee shops and has exploredthe river's world by driving,
hiking and paddling and heprefers paddling.
His work bridges multiplegenres, from critically
acclaimed natural history guidethe Wild Mississippi to his
authoritative guide book series.
(03:37):
Dean also writes mysteriesfeaturing Frank Dodge, a travel
writer whose adventures weavethrough the rivers and I'm going
to screw this up, say itEnigmatic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Enigmatic.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Thank you, I did get it right.
Okay, history with contemporaryintrigue.
I write this out.
I had the word in my head.
You know this is real life.
I lost it.
As a respected voice onMississippi River culture,
dean's writing has appeared inSpisonian Magazine, the National
, the St Louis Post-Dispatch andthe Minneapolis Star Tribute.
(04:22):
He also shares his riverexpertise as a sought-after
guest lecturer on theMississippi's natural and
cultural history, offeringaudiences a unique blend of
historical knowledge andfirsthand experience, and he is
the host of the MississippiValley Traveler podcast.
And I'm so excited I can't eventalk, so I'm glad today you
(04:45):
will be doing most of thetalking as you lead us through
all 10 states that theMississippi River flows through
and destinations that we shouldcheck out.
Welcome, dean, to the RV Lifepodcast.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Patty, thank you so much for inviting me onto this
podcast, and I'm always excitedto talk about my favorite place,
which is anywhere along theMississippi, and I'm always
excited to talk about myfavorite place, you know, which
is anywhere along theMississippi, so I'm really
looking forward to thisconversation with you today.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Great, and let's get started.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are.
I talked about all the thingsyou do, but who are you Tell?
Us about you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, sometimes I'm trying to figure that out myself
.
You know I have not followed anespecially linear career path.
You know, when I was younger Ithought I wanted to change the
world through psychology and Iwent to grad school and became a
psychologist and I worked in anacademic setting for a lot of
years.
I worked with some pretty toughfolks and some tough
(05:46):
communities and over time I justkind of came to realize not
because of the difficulty of thework, but I just didn't feel
like I was especially wellsuited to stay in that academic
setting for the rest of my life.
I'm a hard person to confinebehind a desk day in and day out
Although ironically I kind ofdo it now as a writer but it
didn't seem like it was going tobe the best fit for me.
(06:06):
I really like to have a goodmix of time out in the real
world with time to kind of sitand think about and write about
what's going on.
So I made a big change and Idecided to write about travel,
because I've always been like avery avid traveler and I've been
lucky enough to go to almost 40countries around the world and
all 50 states and travel andcuriosity are deep parts of my
(06:30):
character.
I'm a Midwestern guy too, so Igrew up here in the middle part
of the country and I always havefelt like the places along the
Mississippi never really gettheir due.
You know that this is a specialpart of the country.
Those of us who live here tendto take it for granted.
Hey, you know that this is aspecial part of the country.
Those of us who live here tendto take it for granted hey, you
know, it's just right over there, I can see it anytime.
What's so special about thisplace that I can drive to in
(06:51):
five minutes?
And over time I've really cometo appreciate how this river is
so special in so many ways, butit attracts people from around
the world.
People come from all over theworld to see the Mississippi and
spend time along the river, andI decided it had to be my
mission to help explain to thoseof us who maybe live closer to
(07:14):
what makes this place, thisriver, such a special place.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And again, I'm so grateful to have you on because
you are such a wealth ofinformation for my RVers and, as
we talked about, my listenersconsist of people who are
full-time people, who are sometime, people who are just
looking to explore their areaand people who are looking to
maybe getting in an RV, which wetalked about.
(07:38):
You said that that wassomething you were thinking
about.
I put you on the spot.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right.
Well, I follow a couple ofRVers and van life people on
YouTube and it does.
I think it's nice because insome ways it strips away some of
the veneer over the life andyou get to see more of the
day-to-day challenges that comewith that.
I'm not sure I'm ready today todip a toe into that, but I'm RV
(08:05):
curious, I would say, and wouldlove to maybe take a couple of
weeks and rent something andtravel around and just get a
taste of what the experience islike.
I love the sense of mobility.
You know.
The ability to just pick up andgo someplace new and stay there
for a while really appeals tome.
The practical side of thingsabout how to make it happen it
(08:26):
still feels a little daunting.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay, Well, continue listening to those YouTube
channels.
They are there to help you withall of that.
The RV Life podcast can help,as well as reach out to me
anytime we could chat.
I think that and I'm lookingactually interesting you said
that to do an episode on youknow, as a new RV or what should
(08:48):
you think about, look for thosekinds of things.
So we'll talk and see whereyour concerns are and I can see
how I can address some of those.
Okay, but let's get into theMississippi River.
I'm going to be totally honestand transparent.
I have, I'm going to say, havebeen geographically challenged,
(09:10):
and that includes, you know,just my area, and when I got in
an RV, I said I have to stopsaying that because I've become
more and more familiar, so I'mlearning.
I did not know that theMississippi River runs through
10 states, so I'm alreadylearning from you, Thank you.
Today, I'm going to have youbreak down by state.
(09:34):
As RVers travel across thecountry, I thought it'd be a
great idea to be able to havethem pick the state that they
may be in and there are 10 ofthem, as I said and find what's
in that area.
So before we got on the podcast, I said let's start at the top
of the country, which isMinnesota, so I'm going to leave
(09:56):
it to you.
Tell us some cool things thatwe need to see in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, let me start too with a quick sort of
overview of the whole experience.
There is a national routecalled the Great River Road that
follows the Mississippi fromthe headwaters of Minnesota all
the way down to Venice,louisiana.
So it's about 100 miles southof New Orleans where this ends,
and along almost all of it thereis a designated Great River
(10:23):
Road route on both sides of theMississippi, so you can go down
on the west side of theMississippi and get to Venice,
and then you know Venice.
There's essentially just oneside of the river you're driving
on, but then you can come backup and for the most part you can
drive on the east side of theMississippi and see entirely new
places.
So if you really wanted to godeep into it, you know you could
(10:45):
drive what 5,000 or so milesjust along the Mississippi, by
covering one bank and then theother.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Wow, that's incredible.
Thank you for sharing that.
Maybe that is something peopleput on their bucket list.
Like I want to cover all 48states in the RV.
Now we have people that couldfollow the national route of the
Great River Road.
Okay, yeah, thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So Minnesota is where the Mississippi officially
begins, at a small little placecalled Lake Itasca.
It's about four hours north ofthe Twin Cities by car and it's
protected at Itasca State Park.
It's really one of my favoriteplaces along the entire
Mississippi because as youtravel along the river you get a
(11:33):
very different kinds ofexperiences with what the
natural world is like.
The river changes a lot fromnorthern Minnesota all the way
down to Louisiana, as you mightthink, and in northern Minnesota
at Lake Itasca the river isbasically a trickle that comes
out of Lake Itasca, so you get asense of what the very early
(11:55):
roots or the beginning of theriver is like.
But it's also in the middle ofthe Northwoods and I think
that's partly the distinguishingcharacteristic of the first 200
or 300 miles of the Mississippiis it cuts through these thick
forests that until they werelogged at the end of the 19th
century they were mostly red andwhite pine trees a few hundred
(12:16):
years old, very tall, and thereare patches here and there where
you can visit old growthsections that were never logged,
and there's a little bit ofthat in Itasca State Park you
can visit and get a sense ofwhat those old forests were like
, but through that first.
Oh, I think it's almost 400 orso miles, maybe even 500, before
(12:36):
the river reaches the TwinCities.
The river kind of follows thisfishhook pattern through
northern Minnesota and I thinkit's a fascinating area because
you've got this mix of theseforests, like I said, but it's a
glaciated landscape as well.
So for thousands of years giantchunks of ice stood on top of
(12:57):
this land and then over about10,000 to 15,000 years ago they
retreated and created these newlandscapes.
18,000 years ago they retreatedand created these new
landscapes.
So you see the marks of theglaciers in many places around
there.
If you're kind of a geologygeek, I tend to be a little bit
of a geology geek myself, so Ifind it kind of a fun thing to
look around and see how manygeologic features I can spot
(13:19):
that maybe date to the Ice Age.
But they're also just somereally fun communities.
Bemidji it's the first city onthe Mississippi and it's about a
40-minute drive from ItascaState Park, fun little college
town in the middle of northernMinnesota.
It's kind of the heart today ofthe Ojibwe community, the
(13:40):
Native Americans whohistorically lived in that area.
So there are opportunities tolearn more about Ojibwe culture
and connect with Ojibwe culturewhile you're there.
But then there's also thathearty northern Minnesota
Northwoods culture that you canalso tap into.
Lots of places to hike and dooutdoors activities, a lot of
(14:03):
fishing, plenty of places to gofor a paddle.
It's a fun area and Bemidji hasa nice little cultural scene
too.
It's kind of the largest cityand a fairly large geographic
area.
It's got a college, so there'sa lot of things the college
sponsors, so it's a good placeto base and explore other places
(14:29):
that may be a little moreremote.
So I did a whole book at onetime just on this section of the
river.
There's a lot of differentthings to see.
I think the focus is really onthe outdoors activities, but
it's also the area where wildrice is harvested and it's still
a part of the cultural life ofthe Native American communities
(14:52):
up there to harvest wild rice inthe fall, and by fall in
Minnesota we mean late August.
So I think there's just a lotto really get into and spend
time exploring and then whenyou're tired of maybe visiting a
museum or hanging out in aplace learning about a community
, you can just go for a hike orgo paddle somewhere.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
That's great.
Wow, so much information.
Okay, we are going to flowright into Wisconsin and again,
if you want to do a differentstate, you're the expert.
So Wisconsin seemed like thenext state to hit.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Let's do that because it touches on Minnesota as well
.
So we'll kind of skip past theTwin Cities although I hope
people don't, because I thinkMinneapolis and St Paul are
fantastic cities to visit.
If it wasn't for the longwinter, I might consider living
in Minneapolis myself,minneapolis myself.
(15:51):
But I lived in Minnesota when Iwas younger and I feel like I
did my time suffering throughsix months of winter.
Don't need to go back to that.
But the Twin Cities are reallyfantastic places so much you
could spend, you know, a week ortwo there and barely scratch
the surface.
But we'll move on.
And I will say one little plugthat people don't often
understand or don't know isthere is a national park site in
(16:13):
the Twin Cities.
There's 72 miles of theMississippi through the heart of
the Twin Cities that are theMississippi National River and
Recreation Area.
So it's run by the NationalPark Service and they do a lot.
They have a lot of informationon their website about ways to
experience the Mississippithrough the Twin Cities.
But when you get south of theTwin Cities is when you really
(16:33):
get into the most, say, scenicparts, what I think are the most
scenic parts of the Mississippi.
They're kind of the places thatare the easiest to access and
appreciate the scenic beauty,because you get these gorgeous
limestone bluffs that line theriver on either side, rising up
to about 500 feet tall, and theyframe this river valley three
(16:54):
to five miles wide in mostplaces.
So it's really hard not to beimpressed by this beauty when
you see these gorgeous bluffsand a river and then lots of
woods and forests that runthrough there.
There's an area just south ofthe Twin Cities called Lake
Pepin.
That's a natural widening inthe Mississippi.
There's another river thatmerges with the Mississippi, the
(17:16):
Chippewa River.
That carries a lot of sedimentand it's more than the
Mississippi can clear outnaturally.
So it's formed this natural damand it's slowed the flow of the
river north of there.
So there's this widening thatwe call Lake Pepin.
It's probably one of the mostpopular places for people to
visit flow the river north ofthere.
So there's this widening thatwe call Lake Pepin.
That is probably one of themost popular places for people
to visit.
It's just lined with small townsthat have heavy art scene.
(17:38):
There's lots of bed andbreakfasts, lots of places to
hike, fun, little restaurants.
You can do the drive easily.
In a day you can do a loop.
It covers both Wisconsin andMinnesota, but probably the most
interesting small towns are onthe Wisconsin side, stockholm.
Wisconsin in particular has thepast 20 or 30 years it's
(18:00):
probably become more of anartist community than anything
else, so there are lots of artgalleries and small shops like
that and it's just a beautifulplace to drive.
And, like I said, one of myfavorite views of the river is
in this stretch.
Maiden Rock Bluff is just a bitnorth of Stockholm and you can
park basically on top of thebluff and after a 15-minute hike
(18:23):
through the woods you'd bestanding there on top of the
bluff looking down over LakePepin for one of the best views
you'll find anywhere in thecountry.
If you ask me but I'm a littlebiased that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I'm just in awe of listening and whirly at state
number two.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Absolutely so.
There's a lot to do aroundthere.
There are a lot of peoplesailing.
There are a lot of people wholove to sail on Lake Pepin, and
there's still one or twocompanies that offer sailboat
tours on that part of the riveras well.
And then you get south of thereand the river around Wabasha,
which is just at the southernend of Lake Pepin, the Upper
(19:00):
Mississippi National WildlifeRefuge begins, and that goes
over 250 miles down to about theQuad Cities 250 miles down to
about the Quad Cities and thereal impact of that is that this
is a stretch of river that wasnever really levied and
developed.
So, even though there's sometowns that are right there on
the river, you have a lot morenatural areas.
(19:22):
You have more of a naturalriver.
So there are lots of islands,there are lots of heavily wooded
islands, there are places whereyou can rent a canoe and go for
an easy paddle on the river.
It's just an area where you canget a sense of what the
Mississippi historically waslike, before we began to
(19:43):
re-engineer it for navigation,especially for navigation
especially, so there are lots ofbeautiful spots Lacrosse is,
you know, I went to collegethere so I'm completely unbiased
, right, but it's a funcommunity and I think it's
really kind of the center of anarea where you can access so
(20:05):
many different kinds of outdoorrecreation bike trails, paddling
trails, hiking.
There's just a very deepoutdoor culture and there are
easy ways to get on the river aswell, whether you want to ride
on a tourist boat or paddle ityourself.
So La Crosse is a great placeto use as a base when you're
visiting that part of the river.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, so we didn't move into Iowa yet.
Is that the next state to cover?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Okay, let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So I guess one of the themes in all of this, for me
too, is that I feel like we haveto kind of shape people's
expectations of a trip along theMississippi, because I know
people are often disappointedwhen they drive the Great River
Road that sometimes the asphaltgets far away from the river and
you don't see it at all.
And that's going to be true in alot of Iowa where you can drive
(20:57):
the Great River Road but youmay not actually see the
Mississippi for long stretches,and there are very practical
reasons why that's the case.
But what I you know, sometimesyou have to go a little bit off
the beaten path to get to theriver.
But for me it's really thecommunities along the river are
the places that are probably themost outstanding aspects of a
(21:18):
drive down the Mississippi, andIowa has a bunch of small towns
that are right next to the riverthat are amazing places to
visit, just laid back, friendlycommunities, many of them.
You can find the typical smalltown cafes if you have to enjoy
something, and when you're inIowa I guess you pretty much
have to have a pork tenderloinsandwich at some point.
(21:41):
It's almost required.
If you've never seen one, haveyou ever had a pork tenderloin
sandwich, patty.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I think I might have.
Obviously, I didn't have thebest.
I wasn't in Iowa for it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
They tend to be about three times bigger than the bun
that they come on, and they'reusually fried.
I think it's really kind ofprobably inspired by
Wienerschnitzel, you know, theschnitzels that were native to
Austrian Germany.
There were a lot of Germans whosettled in Iowa, so.
But you know, the porktenderloin sandwich is kind of
one of those things you have tohave, like when you're in
(22:19):
Minnesota you should have wildrice and walleye at some point.
You know, when you're in Iowayou should have a tenderloin
sandwich.
And then there are some.
You've got a mix of kind ofmedium-sized cities to small
towns that are fun places tovisit and have different things
(22:41):
to offer.
Guttenberg Iowa is a fun littleplace to visit and it's got a
very strong identity as a German, ethnic German town.
So they do have a German-themedfestival every summer.
That can be a fun time to go.
But beautiful architecture inthis small downtown area right
next to the river, built byGerman craftsmen 100-plus years
ago.
And then Dubuque is probablythe highlight of that part of
(23:06):
northeast Iowa.
It's a medium-sized city,70,000 people or so, but very
old roots, founded essentiallyas a mining camp and grew from
there.
Lead mining was a majoractivity that drew the first
American settlers, but it's gotsome great architecture.
(23:26):
There's a nice variety ofthings to see and do there
Really, you know some very goodfood and again you've got great
access to the Mississippi thereFurther south, like you know,
the Quad Cities you know I couldgo on and on about that.
I'll just say you could spend aweek again there and scratch the
surface.
But it has all the big cityamenities without all the big
(23:48):
city hassles, and I really likegoing to some of the communities
in the southeast part of thestate.
So Burlington is again kind ofa medium sized city right next
to the Mississippi with a strongriver identity.
Muscatine is another good placeto visit.
That's got a good river history, particularly as a center of
pearl button manufacturing.
(24:08):
So you're going to have to makesome choices along the way to
try to squeeze in all of thisRight.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And I just want we've covered three of the 10 states
and there is so much informationand I know for my RVers they
might be thinking, okay, butwhere can I stay?
Where can I park my RV and Iand that's not your expertise
and what I'm going to recommendis people go to
campgroundsrvlifecom or to TripWizard.
(24:37):
It's part of the RV Life suiteof products and if they go to
any of the places that you justmentioned, they put that into
their Trip Wizard planning appand they can see campgrounds,
places to stay, whether it'scity, state, national parks,
private campgrounds it will allbe there on the Trip Wizard app.
(25:01):
So for people who are nowsaying, that is great, dean, but
I've got a 40-foot RV, where amI going to stay?
That is where people can findplaces to stay.
All right, so let's jump to theeast side of the Mississippi
River and I do have a map infront of me, so I'm cheating
here and we're going to jumpover to Illinois if that's a
(25:24):
good place to go from here.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Absolutely, and I will emphasize too for folks who
are driving in an RV like theGreat River Road is a very well
maintained highway, so there area lot of stretches where it's a
two lane road and there aremany more stretches that's a
four lane highway.
So I think if you're driving anRV, there really are very few
concerns about taking it downthe Mississippi along the Great
(25:47):
River Road.
At this point.
You know it's all very well,it's all good highway.
And the campgrounds do vary alot.
The Corps of Engineersmaintains campgrounds in many
places along the Mississippi.
Some of them are very basic,where you may only have, you
know, a place to pull into, withnothing else, and some, like
the Thompson Causeway RecreationArea, are full service
(26:07):
campgrounds that are verypopular with RVers.
So you'll find a whole range ofdifferent options where you can
be right next to the river fora very inexpensive price to the
full-service campgrounds thatwill be more expensive.
So Illinois is one of thestates that has the most river
miles.
It might be number two.
(26:29):
I used to have this stuffmemorized, but there are the.
Illinois has a very long borderalong the Mississippi, so
there's a lot of things to a lotof places to visit there and
again some very different kindsof experiences depending upon
what you're looking for.
So let's kind of start up inthe northwest corner of the
state.
Galena is probably, other thanmaybe New Orleans, the most
(26:53):
visited site along theMississippi or near the
Mississippi.
Galena is actually a few milesoff the Mississippi River but
the Galena River connects to theMississippi and historically
steamboats, when they traveledup the Mississippi, would take a
detour up the Galena River toservice that community.
And it started as the majorlead mining center in the 1820s
(27:18):
and it was quite a boom town Atone time.
It had, I think, three or fourtimes as many people as it does
today.
So it's a very popular place tovisit today.
I would imagine if you'redriving an RV through there, you
might want to go during theweek when there's less traffic
and maybe a little easier tofind a spot to park.
(27:40):
But the town has a lot ofpre-Civil War architecture and
this beautiful downtown areathat the main street just sort
of follows the gentle curve ofthe Galena River.
So you have this streetscape ofthree and four story brick you
know pre-Civil War brickbuildings that line this main
(28:00):
street and they're occupied bylocally owned businesses and
restaurants and places to stay.
It may be the bed and breakfastcapital of the Mississippi
River too.
There are probably more B&Bsthere than just about anywhere
else along Mississippi, maybe,except for Natchez.
So it gets very busy onweekends and part of the
(28:24):
attraction is, you know, thelead mining.
History is interesting to folks,but it also has its own place
in Civil War history, as UlyssesGrant had a home there.
In fact the home he lived in isa National Historic Site you
can visit there, and there were,I think, eight men from Galena
or with ties to Galena who endedup being generals for the Union
(28:46):
during the Civil War.
So it's got that reallyinteresting history.
And then there are mounds andhistoric sites, native American
mounds and historic sites in thearea I didn't mention with Iowa
, but I probably should havethat Effigy Mounds National
Monument.
It's a place you really shouldvisit as well, because it
preserves 100 or so mounds andvarious sites from different
(29:09):
periods of Native Americanhistory, and you can see some of
that around Galena as well, andfurther south at Albany, also
has another set of mounds thatdate back a thousand plus years.
So Galena is probably the placemost people might be, you know
might be most familiar with.
But then as you travel southfrom there the communities
(29:31):
become generally more smallerand heavily agricultural.
There's a little south of Galena.
Savannah.
Illinois has become kind of thewhat some folks call the blue
collar Galena.
It tends to attract people thatare interested in motorcycling
and travel around on motorcycles.
So there's a culture of barsand places to stay that really
(29:56):
cater to folks who are travelingon motorcycles, but there are
campgrounds around there as well.
Then further south from there isyou get past the Quad Cities.
There's kind of a long stretchthat's all agricultural really,
where there's not going to beall that many places to stop and
visit and the communities thatyou might stop at Keesburg,
(30:18):
oquaka, places like that,there'll be a good small town
museum or two to visit, but youmay not see enough to stick
around for longer than that, butthey're worth visiting.
Enough to stick around forlonger than that, but they're
worth visiting.
I don't know about you, butwhen I'm traveling around, small
town museums are one of myfavorite places to visit.
You get a nice insight into thecommunity itself and there are
(30:41):
these really dedicatedvolunteers that obviously love
and care for their communitiesand want to tell you about them.
So a lot of these smaller towns, like Oquaka, have their own
small town museums.
You may need to call in advanceto make sure when they're open,
because you know there may beone volunteer who only can come
once a week and to your point.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yes, I do love those museums.
Sometimes at welcoming centersyou'll have a museum about the
area and it's just a smalllittle area, but there's so much
there that you can learn and somany cool things to see and
find out about.
So I agree with you, I lovethose.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, one of the other places that I think a lot
of people will visit for thehistory is Nauvoo, illinois,
which is a very important placein Mormon history for the
Latter-day Saints Church.
It's really the place wheremany of the foundational
principles were developed byJoseph Smith, and he was
(31:43):
murdered not too far from there,just before the community had
to—were basically forced out andhad to move west.
So Nauvoo has a very importantplace in Mormon history.
It's almost like a pilgrimagesite for many people who are
members of the LDS Church.
It's an interesting place tovisit as well for anybody,
(32:04):
because the history associatedwith that period of time is
really front and center.
Then let's kind of skip onQuincy, illinois.
I really enjoy visiting Quincy.
It's for a town of its sizelike 40,000 or so people.
It's got some really impressivearchitecture and you can find
(32:27):
styles of architecture that cutacross different periods.
So it's got beautiful.
You know antebellumarchitecture, some great
Victorian architecture.
Then there are someneighborhoods where you can find
Art Deco buildings, you know.
So it's a really interestingplace and they're at their
visitor center just south oftown.
(32:48):
You can stop and you can pickup a guide if you want to just
drive around and look atdifferent kinds of building and
architecture around town.
It's also right there on theMississippi and it's on top of
the bluff, so it's got greatviews and there are a couple of
really fantastic places to eatthere as well.
And then from there it becomesvery agricultural until you get
close to the St Louismetropolitan area very
(33:09):
agricultural until you get closeto the St Louis metropolitan
area.
And just north of St Louisthere's a stretch of the Great
River Road from Alton to Graftonthat is right next to the river
, right between the river andthe bluff.
That is one of the three orfour most scenic stretches of
the drive along the Great RiverRoad.
And Grafton is a very populartourist town People, especially
(33:30):
on weekends.
It'll be very busy withvisitors.
Many of them go there to spenda night or two, to relax, to
hang out.
There are a few things to do inthe area.
There's some hiking nearby atParamarquette State Park and a
couple of other places.
But it's kind of a place thatpeople do as a day trip and like
(33:51):
to go visit, for the food andto hang out next to the river
and it's a cool little town.
They've got a bunch offestivals throughout the year
too.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Right, so we stepped into Missouri, correct?
You said St Louis.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
No, we're still on the Illinois side, but we're
across the river from St Louis.
We're still on the Illinoisside, but we're across the river
from St Louis.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh, got it Okay, just to be clear, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yep.
So we're still working our waydown the Illinois side, but
we're going to pass by St Louismetropolitan area.
The Alton is about a 30-minutedrive from downtown St Louis, a
little bit north of there, andthat stretch of river is a
pretty popular place for peopleto road trip to and drive.
So we'll continue on south fromthere and I'm going to just
(34:37):
highlight a couple of otherthings.
When you get, oh, an hour or sosouth of St Louis, or not much
far from St Louis, you start toget into an area that has a deep
French colonial history, andI'll talk more about that when
we talk about Missouri.
But there are a couple of placeson the Illinois side that
really offer a glimpse into thatFrench colonial past.
(35:00):
There's a fort that those of usin this region tend to call
Fort Charters, but probably moreappropriately Fort de Chartres.
That was a French colonial fortbuilt in the mid-1700s, and a
couple of buildings have beenreconstructed.
It's an interesting site tovisit for that history and they
(35:23):
do festivals throughout the yeartoo.
I think it's really most fun togo there when they have some
festival going on.
They do a rendezvous, usuallyin early June, to recreate kind
of that experience of the furtrade and people coming together
and Native Americans and furtraders and government officials
and cavalry and all kind ofcome assembling in the same
place and people dress up inperiod costumes and it's a whole
(35:46):
thing and it's fun to visit onthat weekend and rendezvous
happen in many places along theriver but this is one of the
bigger rendezvous and nearbyPrairie du Rocher is one of
those old communities that theroots go back before the US was
an independent country.
(36:07):
It was founded as a Frenchcolonial outpost.
Essentially it's got a coupleof things to visit.
It's a very small town but theyhave a small museum and house
an old historic house thathelped tell the story of that
area.
From there we'll just kind ofdip all the way down to Southern
Illinois and for me thesouthern quarter or so of the
(36:28):
state.
The major attraction is ShawneeNational Forest and some of it
touches on the Mississippi.
There are places that you cancamp and hike along there.
There's one particular areathat's one of my favorite spots
to go that maybe not everybodywould find as exciting as me,
but it's known as Snake Road.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
For those who can't see, I'm shaking my head no,
Right?
No, thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
So if you're deathly afraid of snakes, maybe this
isn't the place for you.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
But it's this little road that was built between a
bluff and wetlands and twice ayear snakes move between the
bluffs and the wetlands.
So the snakes winter in thewarmth and safety of the bluffs
and as the seasons change and itwarms up they move from those
(37:22):
bluffs into the wetlands wherethey will spend most of the
warmer months.
So they close the road to allauto traffic for a couple of
months in the spring and thenagain in the fall for the
reverse migration.
And it's a good time, if you'reinterested in snakes, to hop on
down there and maybe spot a few.
You don't always see them andit takes a little bit of
(37:44):
patience, but probably abouthalf the time I've gone down to
visit I've seen some snakes andyou do need to be aware that
some of them are venomouscottonmouths.
So you want to keep yourdistance regardless of what
there is.
But I talked with the parkranger who oversees that area
last year and I think he saidhe's identified 17 or 18
(38:06):
different species of snakes thatcall that area home 17 or 18
different species of snakes thatcall that area home.
So if you're really into thatand you don't mind seeing a
snake from a respectful distance, I think it's a really unique
experience that you don't findin many other places, but it's
all just really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, it sounds like a very unique experience.
I don't want to just tapepeople for me.
I'm out, thank you, but but butit does sound interesting.
Now, if it were horses then youknow that would be more
interesting to me, but there area lot of people that are into
snakes, so that sounds like acool idea.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Right.
So, yeah, I recommend that as aspot to go, and Shawnee
National Forest in general has.
It's a big area.
It covers much of southernIllinois from the Mississippi
River up to the Ohio River, withdifferent sections that are
national forests and there arestate parks mixed in in.
(39:09):
Giant City State Park inSouthern Illinois is one of my
favorite spots to go.
It's not on the Mississippi,it's an hour and a half or so
away from the Mississippi, butit's part of that area that
historically, the Ohio Riverused to cut through there closer
than where it does today.
So it's an interesting geologicmix where you have, like, giant
rocks you know that sometimeshave you know, there are these
(39:30):
giant boulders that stand out inthe middle of nowhere, or, uh,
these forests that grow aroundthese limestone cliffs and, uh,
and deep valleys.
So it's I really like exploringdown there.
It's also they've kind of growntheir own wine wine culture.
You know there are a number oflocal wineries that grow their
own grapes in that area.
(39:53):
So there's a lot of interestingstuff to do down there as well.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Now you're talking about language.
So I don't even drink wine.
I've tasted it.
I have people that really enjoywine.
I could taste differences, butI love vineyards and wineries.
They're just incredible placesto go.
So even from somebody whodoesn't really drink, it sounds
that now you're talking more myspeed I can do that.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Absolutely so of course you want a designated
driver if you're going to bedoing this right as many of
these places you'd have to drivefrom winery to winery to get
the experience.
Many of them have live music,especially on weekends, so even
if you're not there to try thewine, you could go hang out and
listen to some live music.
And it's a rural area.
There's not really a big city.
(40:41):
Carbondale is the largest citynearby and it's not that big a
city.
So it's a very laid back, know,low-key area to to travel
around.
Highly recommend it.
I'll make a quick mention at thevery southern uh, southwestern
tip of illinois, the town ofcairo.
It, let's just say it's beenthrough some difficult times and
(41:05):
it's had a substantialpopulation loss over time.
I think it's an interestingplace to learn about, to learn
the history of.
There aren't going to be toomany sites to visit there.
They do have a museum.
I would call in advance to findout if they're open.
And then, if you continuethrough town, there's Fort
Defiance State Park is right atthe confluence of the Ohio and
(41:29):
Mississippi rivers and you canstand right there with the Ohio
on your left and the Mississippion your right, and that's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Can you define what that means?
What was the word?
I lost it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
The confluence.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The confluence.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yes, yeah, it's just a spot where two rivers meet, so
the two rivers become one, andat this spot, like these, are
two of the biggest rivers inNorth America that merge into
the Mississippi.
The Ohio River ends and theriver that continues on is still
the Mississippi, but it's muchbigger, I will like.
All the caution I'll offer isthat that part floods often this
(42:10):
is one of the other things tokeep in mind about traveling
along the Mississippi in generalis that the river rises, the
river falls and sometimes youcan't get to places because the
water is too high.
And Fort Defiance State Parkfloods almost every year, some
years worse than others.
I think it's probablyunderwater right now, but if
(42:31):
it's not at flood stage, if theOhio, especially, is not at
flood stage, then I think it'sgood just to go to this site to
be able to see where these tworivers come together.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
That sounds amazing.
I actually was in Arizona andat a vineyard and winery and I
just I spent days there, I lovedit and I never had one sip of
wine.
I didn't need to, it was justamazing.
But there is a confluence there.
I forgot what the rivers arethat come together and it was
(43:03):
just an amazing.
It seems so simple and nothingthat big a deal, but it was just
amazing.
So that sounds incredible.
Putting that on my bucket listawesome.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, uh, so, uh.
So that kind of finishesillinois I guess okay.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So before we jump into missouri right, which is
next make sure you keep me ontrack here.
I just want to just take apause for a second here and in
all of the information that youare giving, that is amazing
information for my listeners.
We actually stopped the podcastand I asked my editor about
(43:43):
making this a two part series.
Well, when we started theinformation you were giving, the
wealth of knowledge, I didn'twant to cut it short.
I didn't want to have to getyou down to a very narrow
because you're giving so muchgreat information.
So for my listeners, we aregoing to cover Missouri, we have
(44:05):
some other things we're goingto talk about and then part two
is going to cover our other fivestates.
I'm really excited While we'retalking about traveling so much
traveling.
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Check out the Open Roads fuelcard.
(44:33):
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they save.
So there are 12 testimonials.
There is a link in the shownotes for that.
(44:54):
So just to help you as you'retraveling, save some money here.
Okay, so let's hit Missouri.
These are the Upper MississippiRiver.
We call it right.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
What counts as the Upper Mississippi, I guess
depends on who you ask, becausethere is some variation of what
people consider the UpperMississippi.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I was just going to say so you gave me this, your
I'm reading and I don't know seewhat it's called.
There's a PDF that I'm readingand you called these five the
Upper Mississippi.
So that is what I'm going byand, yes, people have their own,
but it looked like a goodstopping starting point.
(45:37):
So we're going to put that inthe show notes so people could
look at the picture I'm lookingat and there's so much
information on this document.
So you have with Missouri.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Well, let's talk some about Missouri, and there's
quite a bit to cover here too.
This is another area where theriver and the communities change
quite a bit as you travel fromnorth to south and, of course,
like if we're starting in thenorthern part along in Missouri,
you have to talk about Hannibal.
We can't skip Hannibal, andmost people will know that
(46:09):
because of Mark Twain, andHannibal does all it can to make
the most of its connection toMark Twain.
So my feeling is a little mixed, I'll be honest.
I do think, like the Mark Twainsites in Hannibal are really
good.
The Mark Twain Museum, I think,is something everybody should
(46:30):
visit and tour around.
His childhood home is part ofthat admission, and that's a
good place to visit as well.
Some of the rest of the stuff intown, I think, tends to get a
little too kitschy for my tastes.
You know it tends to maybe playtoo much, take advantage of too
much of the whole Mark Twaintheme, but there are still good
(46:54):
places to eat and the MainStreet area is almost entirely
local shops.
I have a very strong preferenceto patronize locally owned
businesses as much as possible,and there's plenty of that in
that section of Hannibal.
They also have riverboat tours.
So it's one of the places whereyou can do a day cruise for a
(47:14):
couple of hours, maybe a lunchcruise or maybe an evening
cruise around sunset, sometimeswith music, so you can get out
on the water and you can kind ofimagine this world as Mark
Twain would have known it andget some sense about how that
might have influenced his ownworldviews.
But the Mark Twain Museum isdefinitely a place everybody
(47:38):
should visit.
As you continue on throughthere again, you're going to go
through a stretch where you'renot going to see much of the
river, but there's some, um,good historic river towns that
are worth at least drivingthrough, maybe stopping and
visiting a local museum if it'sopen, or a bite of eat.
Louisiana and uh andclarksville fit that bill and um
(47:59):
, there were.
They also have a couple placeswhere you can just kind of stop
next to the river and see what'sgoing on on the river.
Then you kind of get intoMetropolitan St Louis and we
could do a couple of shows juston that.
So we'll just kind of I'll justhighlight a couple of things
about this that gosh, there'sjust so much to say.
(48:21):
So when you get a little closerto the metropolitan area.
Then you get near the confluenceof the Missouri and the
Mississippi rivers and I thinkyou know this is one of my
favorite places to go.
I have my own spot that I liketo go when I need to get away
from the city and it's up at theconfluence area.
There's a place called ColumbiaBottoms Conservation Area.
(48:42):
That is right next to bothrivers so there's some hiking
trails around there.
The area floods regularly too,so it's a little bit of a
transition right now wherethey're moving away from some of
the hands-on management thatthey used to do to keep
everything open and accessibleand letting things get a little
more wild.
But you can.
(49:02):
There's an area where you canpark and then walk about a mile
to get to see the confluencedirectly of the Missouri and the
Mississippi.
River is from that southeastcorner of the confluence and
there are some places you canhike along there that are kind
of semi-marked trails.
It's just the other side of theMissouri River.
(49:25):
You're still on the Missouriside of the Mississippi, but
you're then north of theMissouri River.
You're still on the Missouriside of the Mississippi but
you're then north of theMissouri River and Confluence
it's Jones.
Confluence Point State Park hasa nice parking lot and a short,
like five-minute walk on apaved sidewalk to get from the
parking lot to see the spotwhere the two rivers merge and
(49:45):
that's a really, really goodview from there.
There's a little bit of hikingaround there, but it's not the
kind of place you're going tospend a couple of hours.
You'll probably be there for afairly quick stop to take a look
at the two rivers and again,like there's a, there's this
narrow point that kind ofdisappears into the rivers where
you could theoretically standwith one foot in the Mississippi
(50:06):
and one foot in the Missouri,stand with one foot in the
Mississippi and one foot in theMissouri.
So if you're into those youknow nerdy things like me then
you might want to do that.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
That sounds great.
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
In St Louis proper.
You know the main river-relatedsite is going to be the Gateway
Arch and if you've never beenthere you should definitely go.
They did a major renovation sixor seven years ago now and
changed quite a bit.
So if you're driving an RV intodowntown, you know you may not
(50:39):
do that.
I don't quite know like howeverybody in an RV might
approach that.
There is no parking right nextto the arch.
Almost all of the parkingassociated with the arch now is
in parking garages downtown andthen you have to walk from there
to get to the arch itself.
So keep that in mind if you'regoing to visit the arch and you
(51:00):
don't have an alternate vehiclethat you could take into the
city.
But it's so worth a visit.
The museum under the arch isfantastic.
They completely redid that aspart of the renovation.
You can ride up an elevator tothe top of the arch and if
you've never done that, I highlyrecommend it.
(51:20):
If you're claustrophobic, youknow, yeah, maybe not, you know,
if you don't really likeenclosed spaces because those
capsules you ride up, then theelevator pretty cozy and you're
going to get to know yourneighbors pretty well for the
couple of minutes it takes toget to the top, but it's worth
the experience.
I find the engineering of thatreally fascinating, and then you
(51:42):
get views from the top of thearch where you can look out over
St Louis and over Illinois andsee quite a bit of the
Mississippi from there.
So if you're only going to doone thing river related in St
Louis, then you probably shoulddo the Gateway Arch experience.
There's a lot to cover inMissouri as well, and I'll do a
couple more highlights.
So the next major highlightreally, as you're traveling
south, is going to be in StGenevieve, and that's really the
(52:03):
heart of the French colonialterritory, really the heart of
the French colonial territory,and Saint Genevieve has sections
of it now that are managed bythe National Park Service.
It's, I think, saint GenevieveNational Historic Park.
So there are a number ofbuildings that date to that
French colonial period thatsurvive today, so over 200 years
(52:25):
old, really interestingarchitectural styles.
You can tour much of that Again.
Lots of bed and breakfasts,lots of places to tour the
architecture in that area, andthe Center for French Colonial
Life really gives a good senseof what that heritage is like.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Okay, is that Missouri as much?
I know there's got to be a tonmore.
You feel like we've coveredMissouri pretty well here.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, I'll just say Cape Girardeau would be the next
sort of big city along the wayand it's worth visiting too.
But you know you can read up onthat.
It's a good river town and hasa couple of sites worth visiting
as well, but probably mostpeople will see St Genevieve and
then continue on.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Okay, okay.
So let's talk a little bitabout you are interested in this
whole idea of RVing.
I'm going to make a suggestion.
One of my sponsors is NationalIndoor RV Centers.
They have six locations acrossthe country, one of them in
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Mississippi River, runs by.
I have notes so I knew that,and so if you're looking for
(53:39):
that van or you want to get upto that Class A, that's the
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I want to take a minute nowbecause it is time for the
question of the week and we aredoing this in two parts.
But I want to cover thequestion of the week, so I'm
(54:02):
going to ask you the question,which I think is going to be
tough for you, dean, and Ididn't tell you about this
question, so I'm going to askyou the question.
I'm going to be tough for you,dean, and I didn't tell you
about this question, so I'mgoing to ask you the question.
I'm going to give you a fewminutes while I talk about
innovative toll solutions.
Question is what do you have onyour bucket list?
(54:22):
I know you just covered a slewof things.
You're shaking your head You'renot cringing.
I know you just covered a slewof things.
You're shaking your head,you're not cringing.
What is on your bucket listthat you would recommend to my
listeners?
Now, while you're thinking aboutthat, innovative Toll Solutions
is a toll pass that covers all48 states.
(54:43):
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(55:05):
innovative Toll Solutions willhandle it for you.
You call them, you email themor you go to the app and they
will take care of it for you.
Okay, I could see Dean is stillthinking but what would you?
What would be a place, anexperience, something to do or
(55:27):
see that is on your bucket list?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
So are we talking anywhere around the world, or
just the Mississippi Anywherearound the world, anywhere you
want.
Well, on my personal bucketlist is I want to get to
Antarctica.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Probably not what you're expecting, but I have a
fascination with remote places,and Antarctica is about as
remote as one can get, althoughthere are cruises that go down
there, so it's not quite asremote as it seems.
But I really would like to beable to step on that continent
(56:05):
and walk around and just kind ofsee the place for myself.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Wow, that's a cool suggestion.
I don't think that has everbeen.
I ask this question of peopleevery week and that has probably
never been the answer, but thatsounds really cool and
certainly remote, so I'll haveto investigate it.
See if I'm going to add that tomy bucket list.
It's now time to talk aboutcampgrounds and, as we talked
about in the show, toinvestigate Antarctica.
(56:34):
See if I'm going to add that tomy bucket list.
It's now time to talk aboutcampgrounds and, as we talked
about in the show, there arecampgrounds that are around all
of the places that Deanmentioned, and the easiest way
to find a campground in the areaand you gave some great
suggestions, so I hope peopletake those into consideration.
But a great way to find allthings camping is by going to
(56:57):
campgroundsrvlifecom.
It is part of the RV Life ProSuite of products and it will
cover all types of campgrounds,like I said private state
campgrounds, corps of Engineers,blm land, you name it.
It's going to be covered there.
If you don't have the RV LifePro Suite of products, there is
a link in the show notes.
Once you get to check out,it'll give you 25% off for any
(57:21):
new users.
Now, as I said I'm not going tothank you and close out this
episode.
Well, maybe I will, but firstof all, the first thing we need
to do, let me back up, becausewe are making this a part two
and I just decided that in themiddle of the interview.
So here we are.
I'm glad I'm the boss of thispodcast.
People can get you by going toMississippiValleyTravelercom
(57:47):
correct, that's the best way.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, and I'll just make a quick plug, pretty much
everything that we've talkedabout is in my Great River Road
guidebook.
So if this is a lot ofinformation and you're trying to
take notes, the Great RoadTripping, the Great River Road,
volume 1.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkthere's going to be a Volume 2,
but Volume 1 does exist and itcovers the upper half of the
river.
It includes all of that andmore.
(58:10):
And then my website,mississippivalleytravelercom,
has a section on river towns andit includes a lot of that same
information as well.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
If you would prefer just to kind of surf through
different websites, Right, andthat's what I was looking at as
you're talking so I couldvisualize on the map.
I'm learning these states thatI really wasn't as familiar with
, so I highly recommend peoplelooking at road tripping the
Great River Road, because it'sbeen.
I've been reading it for thelast week in preparation for our
(58:43):
interview.
Okay, I do want to thank youfor people who are watching this
episode.
I want to thank you very muchfor being on.
Do you also have social mediathat we can lead people to?
I didn't ask.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah, I'm a little inconsistent with that, to be
honest.
I have been pulling back some,but I do have an Instagram feed
and I think I'm at deanclink onInstagram.
I would say that's probably thebest place, the most reliable
place, where I post, and whenI'm traveling I tend to post a
lot of pictures, so a lot ofpretty pictures from the
Mississippi and other places,but there's also the Mississippi
(59:19):
Valley Traveler page onFacebook.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
Okay, so you're going to get me that information.
I'll post it in the show notes.
You said you're not consistent,so if people want to reach out
to me, we want to hear questions, comments, suggestions from
people.
You and I both want to hearthat and they can reach out to
me on Instagram or Facebook atRV Life Podcast.
And yeah, I mean this wasincredible.
(59:45):
I cannot wait for part two.
We're going to cover the nextfive states in the lower half of
the Mississippi River.
This is really exciting and,being that right now this is
going to be posted in the wintermonths, people may want to
start out in this lower halfbecause of weather and work
(01:00:05):
their way up.
If they decide they want totravel up the Mississippi River,
that's cool.
Anybody who's traveled it,anybody who is thinking about
doing that.
I really want to hear from you.
I want to thank my listenersfor listening and remember
life's a journey.
Live each day to the fullest,without regrets.
I'm Patti Hunt and you've beenlistening to the RV Life Podcast
(01:00:29):
.
Are you ready to discover the hidden gems along
the mighty Mississippi River?
I'm Patti Hunt and you'relistening to the RV Life Podcast
.
My expert guest today is thehost of the Mississippi Valley
(00:20):
Traveler and he is here to sharemust-see destinations along the
mighty Mississippi River.
Now, Dean, tell us why youdecided to explore the
Mississippi River.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I really got familiar with the Mississippi I guess
you could say it got its hooksin me when I was a college
student in La Crosse, wisconsin,and I spend a lot of my time
sort of brooding and thinkingand trying to calm myself by
biking down to the river forsome quiet time.
And over the years I've justit's impressed me so much with
the depth of history representedalong the river, with the range
(00:58):
of natural beauty.
Basically you can have justabout any kind of experience you
want to have anywhere along theMississippi.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And I am so excited.
I have very little experiencewith the Mississippi River, so,
if you could hear my voice, I amso excited to hear the things
that people can see and do and,like you say, the hidden gems
along the river.
I traveled for those people whoaren't familiar back and forth
across the country three and ahalf times over a more than
three-year period of time.
(01:32):
I was full-time on the road andI don't think I spent any time
being near the Mississippi Riverexploring any of that.
So today, after listening toyou, I know I will have places
to add to my bucket list.
So I'm so grateful you are onthis show with us.
The RV Life podcast was createdto entertain, educate and
(01:54):
explore the RV lifestyle, and itis my mission to inspire you,
my listener, to live life to thefullest.
Let's talk first about OpenRoad Resorts.
They have five amazinglocations one in Idaho, one in
Nebraska, one in New Mexico andtwo in Texas.
They believe in being guestcentric, with a welcoming
(02:18):
community feel.
All of these parks are featuredon the RV Life Campgrounds.
They are featured parks and youcould check out all of the
reviews you don the RV LifeCampgrounds.
They are featured parks and youcould check out all of the
reviews.
You don't have to listen to me,you don't have to listen to
what they have to say.
Just check out the reviews.
The people who've stayed atthis park are leaving incredible
reviews and you could checkthose out on
(02:39):
campgroundsrvlifecom or youcould go to openroadresortscom
Today.
Dean Klinkenberg, did I saythat right?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You nailed it.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I got it.
Names are you know, I'm workingon them the Mississippi Valley
Traveler.
You've spent two decadeschronicling America's mightiest
river, from Minnesota's pristineforest to the saltwater swamps
of the Gulf Coast.
He mixes library research withconversation in local bars and
(03:15):
coffee shops and has exploredthe river's world by driving,
hiking and paddling and heprefers paddling.
His work bridges multiplegenres, from critically
acclaimed natural history guidethe Wild Mississippi to his
authoritative guide book series.
(03:37):
Dean also writes mysteriesfeaturing Frank Dodge, a travel
writer whose adventures weavethrough the rivers and I'm going
to screw this up, say itEnigmatic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Enigmatic.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Thank you, I did get it right.
Okay, history with contemporaryintrigue.
I write this out.
I had the word in my head.
You know this is real life.
I lost it.
As a respected voice onMississippi River culture,
dean's writing has appeared inSpisonian Magazine, the National
, the St Louis Post-Dispatch andthe Minneapolis Star Tribute.
(04:22):
He also shares his riverexpertise as a sought-after
guest lecturer on theMississippi's natural and
cultural history, offeringaudiences a unique blend of
historical knowledge andfirsthand experience, and he is
the host of the MississippiValley Traveler podcast.
And I'm so excited I can't eventalk, so I'm glad today you
(04:45):
will be doing most of thetalking as you lead us through
all 10 states that theMississippi River flows through
and destinations that we shouldcheck out.
Welcome, dean, to the RV Lifepodcast.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Patty, thank you so much for inviting me onto this
podcast, and I'm always excitedto talk about my favorite place,
which is anywhere along theMississippi, and I'm always
excited to talk about myfavorite place, you know, which
is anywhere along theMississippi, so I'm really
looking forward to thisconversation with you today.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Great, and let's get started.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are.
I talked about all the thingsyou do, but who are you Tell?
Us about you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, sometimes I'm trying to figure that out myself
.
You know I have not followed anespecially linear career path.
You know, when I was younger Ithought I wanted to change the
world through psychology and Iwent to grad school and became a
psychologist and I worked in anacademic setting for a lot of
years.
I worked with some pretty toughfolks and some tough
(05:46):
communities and over time I justkind of came to realize not
because of the difficulty of thework, but I just didn't feel
like I was especially wellsuited to stay in that academic
setting for the rest of my life.
I'm a hard person to confinebehind a desk day in and day out
Although ironically I kind ofdo it now as a writer but it
didn't seem like it was going tobe the best fit for me.
(06:06):
I really like to have a goodmix of time out in the real
world with time to kind of sitand think about and write about
what's going on.
So I made a big change and Idecided to write about travel,
because I've always been like avery avid traveler and I've been
lucky enough to go to almost 40countries around the world and
all 50 states and travel andcuriosity are deep parts of my
(06:30):
character.
I'm a Midwestern guy too, so Igrew up here in the middle part
of the country and I always havefelt like the places along the
Mississippi never really gettheir due.
You know that this is a specialpart of the country.
Those of us who live here tendto take it for granted.
Hey, you know that this is aspecial part of the country.
Those of us who live here tendto take it for granted hey, you
know, it's just right over there, I can see it anytime.
What's so special about thisplace that I can drive to in
(06:51):
five minutes?
And over time I've really cometo appreciate how this river is
so special in so many ways, butit attracts people from around
the world.
People come from all over theworld to see the Mississippi and
spend time along the river, andI decided it had to be my
mission to help explain to thoseof us who maybe live closer to
(07:14):
what makes this place, thisriver, such a special place.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And again, I'm so grateful to have you on because
you are such a wealth ofinformation for my RVers and, as
we talked about, my listenersconsist of people who are
full-time people, who are sometime, people who are just
looking to explore their areaand people who are looking to
maybe getting in an RV, which wetalked about.
(07:38):
You said that that wassomething you were thinking
about.
I put you on the spot.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right.
Well, I follow a couple ofRVers and van life people on
YouTube and it does.
I think it's nice because insome ways it strips away some of
the veneer over the life andyou get to see more of the
day-to-day challenges that comewith that.
I'm not sure I'm ready today todip a toe into that, but I'm RV
(08:05):
curious, I would say, and wouldlove to maybe take a couple of
weeks and rent something andtravel around and just get a
taste of what the experience islike.
I love the sense of mobility.
You know.
The ability to just pick up andgo someplace new and stay there
for a while really appeals tome.
The practical side of thingsabout how to make it happen it
(08:26):
still feels a little daunting.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay, Well, continue listening to those YouTube
channels.
They are there to help you withall of that.
The RV Life podcast can help,as well as reach out to me
anytime we could chat.
I think that and I'm lookingactually interesting you said
that to do an episode on youknow, as a new RV or what should
(08:48):
you think about, look for thosekinds of things.
So we'll talk and see whereyour concerns are and I can see
how I can address some of those.
Okay, but let's get into theMississippi River.
I'm going to be totally honestand transparent.
I have, I'm going to say, havebeen geographically challenged,
(09:10):
and that includes, you know,just my area, and when I got in
an RV, I said I have to stopsaying that because I've become
more and more familiar, so I'mlearning.
I did not know that theMississippi River runs through
10 states, so I'm alreadylearning from you, Thank you.
Today, I'm going to have youbreak down by state.
(09:34):
As RVers travel across thecountry, I thought it'd be a
great idea to be able to havethem pick the state that they
may be in and there are 10 ofthem, as I said and find what's
in that area.
So before we got on the podcast, I said let's start at the top
of the country, which isMinnesota, so I'm going to leave
(09:56):
it to you.
Tell us some cool things thatwe need to see in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, let me start too with a quick sort of
overview of the whole experience.
There is a national routecalled the Great River Road that
follows the Mississippi fromthe headwaters of Minnesota all
the way down to Venice,louisiana.
So it's about 100 miles southof New Orleans where this ends,
and along almost all of it thereis a designated Great River
(10:23):
Road route on both sides of theMississippi, so you can go down
on the west side of theMississippi and get to Venice,
and then you know Venice.
There's essentially just oneside of the river you're driving
on, but then you can come backup and for the most part you can
drive on the east side of theMississippi and see entirely new
places.
So if you really wanted to godeep into it, you know you could
(10:45):
drive what 5,000 or so milesjust along the Mississippi, by
covering one bank and then theother.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Wow, that's incredible.
Thank you for sharing that.
Maybe that is something peopleput on their bucket list.
Like I want to cover all 48states in the RV.
Now we have people that couldfollow the national route of the
Great River Road.
Okay, yeah, thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So Minnesota is where the Mississippi officially
begins, at a small little placecalled Lake Itasca.
It's about four hours north ofthe Twin Cities by car and it's
protected at Itasca State Park.
It's really one of my favoriteplaces along the entire
Mississippi because as youtravel along the river you get a
(11:33):
very different kinds ofexperiences with what the
natural world is like.
The river changes a lot fromnorthern Minnesota all the way
down to Louisiana, as you mightthink, and in northern Minnesota
at Lake Itasca the river isbasically a trickle that comes
out of Lake Itasca, so you get asense of what the very early
(11:55):
roots or the beginning of theriver is like.
But it's also in the middle ofthe Northwoods and I think
that's partly the distinguishingcharacteristic of the first 200
or 300 miles of the Mississippiis it cuts through these thick
forests that until they werelogged at the end of the 19th
century they were mostly red andwhite pine trees a few hundred
(12:16):
years old, very tall, and thereare patches here and there where
you can visit old growthsections that were never logged,
and there's a little bit ofthat in Itasca State Park you
can visit and get a sense ofwhat those old forests were like
, but through that first.
Oh, I think it's almost 400 orso miles, maybe even 500, before
(12:36):
the river reaches the TwinCities.
The river kind of follows thisfishhook pattern through
northern Minnesota and I thinkit's a fascinating area because
you've got this mix of theseforests, like I said, but it's a
glaciated landscape as well.
So for thousands of years giantchunks of ice stood on top of
(12:57):
this land and then over about10,000 to 15,000 years ago they
retreated and created these newlandscapes.
18,000 years ago they retreatedand created these new
landscapes.
So you see the marks of theglaciers in many places around
there.
If you're kind of a geologygeek, I tend to be a little bit
of a geology geek myself, so Ifind it kind of a fun thing to
look around and see how manygeologic features I can spot
(13:19):
that maybe date to the Ice Age.
But they're also just somereally fun communities.
Bemidji it's the first city onthe Mississippi and it's about a
40-minute drive from ItascaState Park, fun little college
town in the middle of northernMinnesota.
It's kind of the heart today ofthe Ojibwe community, the
(13:40):
Native Americans whohistorically lived in that area.
So there are opportunities tolearn more about Ojibwe culture
and connect with Ojibwe culturewhile you're there.
But then there's also thathearty northern Minnesota
Northwoods culture that you canalso tap into.
Lots of places to hike and dooutdoors activities, a lot of
(14:03):
fishing, plenty of places to gofor a paddle.
It's a fun area and Bemidji hasa nice little cultural scene
too.
It's kind of the largest cityand a fairly large geographic
area.
It's got a college, so there'sa lot of things the college
sponsors, so it's a good placeto base and explore other places
(14:29):
that may be a little moreremote.
So I did a whole book at onetime just on this section of the
river.
There's a lot of differentthings to see.
I think the focus is really onthe outdoors activities, but
it's also the area where wildrice is harvested and it's still
a part of the cultural life ofthe Native American communities
(14:52):
up there to harvest wild rice inthe fall, and by fall in
Minnesota we mean late August.
So I think there's just a lotto really get into and spend
time exploring and then whenyou're tired of maybe visiting a
museum or hanging out in aplace learning about a community
, you can just go for a hike orgo paddle somewhere.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
That's great.
Wow, so much information.
Okay, we are going to flowright into Wisconsin and again,
if you want to do a differentstate, you're the expert.
So Wisconsin seemed like thenext state to hit.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Let's do that because it touches on Minnesota as well
.
So we'll kind of skip past theTwin Cities although I hope
people don't, because I thinkMinneapolis and St Paul are
fantastic cities to visit.
If it wasn't for the longwinter, I might consider living
in Minneapolis myself,minneapolis myself.
(15:51):
But I lived in Minnesota when Iwas younger and I feel like I
did my time suffering throughsix months of winter.
Don't need to go back to that.
But the Twin Cities are reallyfantastic places so much you
could spend, you know, a week ortwo there and barely scratch
the surface.
But we'll move on.
And I will say one little plugthat people don't often
understand or don't know isthere is a national park site in
(16:13):
the Twin Cities.
There's 72 miles of theMississippi through the heart of
the Twin Cities that are theMississippi National River and
Recreation Area.
So it's run by the NationalPark Service and they do a lot.
They have a lot of informationon their website about ways to
experience the Mississippithrough the Twin Cities.
But when you get south of theTwin Cities is when you really
(16:33):
get into the most, say, scenicparts, what I think are the most
scenic parts of the Mississippi.
They're kind of the places thatare the easiest to access and
appreciate the scenic beauty,because you get these gorgeous
limestone bluffs that line theriver on either side, rising up
to about 500 feet tall, and theyframe this river valley three
(16:54):
to five miles wide in mostplaces.
So it's really hard not to beimpressed by this beauty when
you see these gorgeous bluffsand a river and then lots of
woods and forests that runthrough there.
There's an area just south ofthe Twin Cities called Lake
Pepin.
That's a natural widening inthe Mississippi.
There's another river thatmerges with the Mississippi, the
(17:16):
Chippewa River.
That carries a lot of sedimentand it's more than the
Mississippi can clear outnaturally.
So it's formed this natural damand it's slowed the flow of the
river north of there.
So there's this widening thatwe call Lake Pepin.
It's probably one of the mostpopular places for people to
visit flow the river north ofthere.
So there's this widening thatwe call Lake Pepin.
That is probably one of themost popular places for people
to visit.
It's just lined with small townsthat have heavy art scene.
(17:38):
There's lots of bed andbreakfasts, lots of places to
hike, fun, little restaurants.
You can do the drive easily.
In a day you can do a loop.
It covers both Wisconsin andMinnesota, but probably the most
interesting small towns are onthe Wisconsin side, stockholm.
Wisconsin in particular has thepast 20 or 30 years it's
(18:00):
probably become more of anartist community than anything
else, so there are lots of artgalleries and small shops like
that and it's just a beautifulplace to drive.
And, like I said, one of myfavorite views of the river is
in this stretch.
Maiden Rock Bluff is just a bitnorth of Stockholm and you can
park basically on top of thebluff and after a 15-minute hike
(18:23):
through the woods you'd bestanding there on top of the
bluff looking down over LakePepin for one of the best views
you'll find anywhere in thecountry.
If you ask me but I'm a littlebiased that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I'm just in awe of listening and whirly at state
number two.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Absolutely so.
There's a lot to do aroundthere.
There are a lot of peoplesailing.
There are a lot of people wholove to sail on Lake Pepin, and
there's still one or twocompanies that offer sailboat
tours on that part of the riveras well.
And then you get south of thereand the river around Wabasha,
which is just at the southernend of Lake Pepin, the Upper
(19:00):
Mississippi National WildlifeRefuge begins, and that goes
over 250 miles down to about theQuad Cities 250 miles down to
about the Quad Cities and thereal impact of that is that this
is a stretch of river that wasnever really levied and
developed.
So, even though there's sometowns that are right there on
the river, you have a lot morenatural areas.
(19:22):
You have more of a naturalriver.
So there are lots of islands,there are lots of heavily wooded
islands, there are places whereyou can rent a canoe and go for
an easy paddle on the river.
It's just an area where you canget a sense of what the
Mississippi historically waslike, before we began to
(19:43):
re-engineer it for navigation,especially for navigation
especially, so there are lots ofbeautiful spots Lacrosse is,
you know, I went to collegethere so I'm completely unbiased
, right, but it's a funcommunity and I think it's
really kind of the center of anarea where you can access so
(20:05):
many different kinds of outdoorrecreation bike trails, paddling
trails, hiking.
There's just a very deepoutdoor culture and there are
easy ways to get on the river aswell, whether you want to ride
on a tourist boat or paddle ityourself.
So La Crosse is a great placeto use as a base when you're
visiting that part of the river.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, so we didn't move into Iowa yet.
Is that the next state to cover?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Okay, let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So I guess one of the themes in all of this, for me
too, is that I feel like we haveto kind of shape people's
expectations of a trip along theMississippi, because I know
people are often disappointedwhen they drive the Great River
Road that sometimes the asphaltgets far away from the river and
you don't see it at all.
And that's going to be true in alot of Iowa where you can drive
(20:57):
the Great River Road but youmay not actually see the
Mississippi for long stretches,and there are very practical
reasons why that's the case.
But what I you know, sometimesyou have to go a little bit off
the beaten path to get to theriver.
But for me it's really thecommunities along the river are
the places that are probably themost outstanding aspects of a
(21:18):
drive down the Mississippi, andIowa has a bunch of small towns
that are right next to the riverthat are amazing places to
visit, just laid back, friendlycommunities, many of them.
You can find the typical smalltown cafes if you have to enjoy
something, and when you're inIowa I guess you pretty much
have to have a pork tenderloinsandwich at some point.
(21:41):
It's almost required.
If you've never seen one, haveyou ever had a pork tenderloin
sandwich, patty.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I think I might have.
Obviously, I didn't have thebest.
I wasn't in Iowa for it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
They tend to be about three times bigger than the bun
that they come on, and they'reusually fried.
I think it's really kind ofprobably inspired by
Wienerschnitzel, you know, theschnitzels that were native to
Austrian Germany.
There were a lot of Germans whosettled in Iowa, so.
But you know, the porktenderloin sandwich is kind of
one of those things you have tohave, like when you're in
(22:19):
Minnesota you should have wildrice and walleye at some point.
You know, when you're in Iowayou should have a tenderloin
sandwich.
And then there are some.
You've got a mix of kind ofmedium-sized cities to small
towns that are fun places tovisit and have different things
(22:41):
to offer.
Guttenberg Iowa is a fun littleplace to visit and it's got a
very strong identity as a German, ethnic German town.
So they do have a German-themedfestival every summer.
That can be a fun time to go.
But beautiful architecture inthis small downtown area right
next to the river, built byGerman craftsmen 100-plus years
ago.
And then Dubuque is probablythe highlight of that part of
(23:06):
northeast Iowa.
It's a medium-sized city,70,000 people or so, but very
old roots, founded essentiallyas a mining camp and grew from
there.
Lead mining was a majoractivity that drew the first
American settlers, but it's gotsome great architecture.
(23:26):
There's a nice variety ofthings to see and do there
Really, you know some very goodfood and again you've got great
access to the Mississippi thereFurther south, like you know,
the Quad Cities you know I couldgo on and on about that.
I'll just say you could spend aweek again there and scratch the
surface.
But it has all the big cityamenities without all the big
(23:48):
city hassles, and I really likegoing to some of the communities
in the southeast part of thestate.
So Burlington is again kind ofa medium sized city right next
to the Mississippi with a strongriver identity.
Muscatine is another good placeto visit.
That's got a good river history, particularly as a center of
pearl button manufacturing.
(24:08):
So you're going to have to makesome choices along the way to
try to squeeze in all of thisRight.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And I just want we've covered three of the 10 states
and there is so much informationand I know for my RVers they
might be thinking, okay, butwhere can I stay?
Where can I park my RV and Iand that's not your expertise
and what I'm going to recommendis people go to
campgroundsrvlifecom or to TripWizard.
(24:37):
It's part of the RV Life suiteof products and if they go to
any of the places that you justmentioned, they put that into
their Trip Wizard planning appand they can see campgrounds,
places to stay, whether it'scity, state, national parks,
private campgrounds it will allbe there on the Trip Wizard app.
(25:01):
So for people who are nowsaying, that is great, dean, but
I've got a 40-foot RV, where amI going to stay?
That is where people can findplaces to stay.
All right, so let's jump to theeast side of the Mississippi
River and I do have a map infront of me, so I'm cheating
here and we're going to jumpover to Illinois if that's a
(25:24):
good place to go from here.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Absolutely, and I will emphasize too for folks who
are driving in an RV like theGreat River Road is a very well
maintained highway, so there area lot of stretches where it's a
two lane road and there aremany more stretches that's a
four lane highway.
So I think if you're driving anRV, there really are very few
concerns about taking it downthe Mississippi along the Great
(25:47):
River Road.
At this point.
You know it's all very well,it's all good highway.
And the campgrounds do vary alot.
The Corps of Engineersmaintains campgrounds in many
places along the Mississippi.
Some of them are very basic,where you may only have, you
know, a place to pull into, withnothing else, and some, like
the Thompson Causeway RecreationArea, are full service
(26:07):
campgrounds that are verypopular with RVers.
So you'll find a whole range ofdifferent options where you can
be right next to the river fora very inexpensive price to the
full-service campgrounds thatwill be more expensive.
So Illinois is one of thestates that has the most river
miles.
It might be number two.
(26:29):
I used to have this stuffmemorized, but there are the.
Illinois has a very long borderalong the Mississippi, so
there's a lot of things to a lotof places to visit there and
again some very different kindsof experiences depending upon
what you're looking for.
So let's kind of start up inthe northwest corner of the
state.
Galena is probably, other thanmaybe New Orleans, the most
(26:53):
visited site along theMississippi or near the
Mississippi.
Galena is actually a few milesoff the Mississippi River but
the Galena River connects to theMississippi and historically
steamboats, when they traveledup the Mississippi, would take a
detour up the Galena River toservice that community.
And it started as the majorlead mining center in the 1820s
(27:18):
and it was quite a boom town Atone time.
It had, I think, three or fourtimes as many people as it does
today.
So it's a very popular place tovisit today.
I would imagine if you'redriving an RV through there, you
might want to go during theweek when there's less traffic
and maybe a little easier tofind a spot to park.
(27:40):
But the town has a lot ofpre-Civil War architecture and
this beautiful downtown areathat the main street just sort
of follows the gentle curve ofthe Galena River.
So you have this streetscape ofthree and four story brick you
know pre-Civil War brickbuildings that line this main
(28:00):
street and they're occupied bylocally owned businesses and
restaurants and places to stay.
It may be the bed and breakfastcapital of the Mississippi
River too.
There are probably more B&Bsthere than just about anywhere
else along Mississippi, maybe,except for Natchez.
So it gets very busy onweekends and part of the
(28:24):
attraction is, you know, thelead mining.
History is interesting to folks,but it also has its own place
in Civil War history, as UlyssesGrant had a home there.
In fact the home he lived in isa National Historic Site you
can visit there, and there were,I think, eight men from Galena
or with ties to Galena who endedup being generals for the Union
(28:46):
during the Civil War.
So it's got that reallyinteresting history.
And then there are mounds andhistoric sites, native American
mounds and historic sites in thearea I didn't mention with Iowa
, but I probably should havethat Effigy Mounds National
Monument.
It's a place you really shouldvisit as well, because it
preserves 100 or so mounds andvarious sites from different
(29:09):
periods of Native Americanhistory, and you can see some of
that around Galena as well, andfurther south at Albany, also
has another set of mounds thatdate back a thousand plus years.
So Galena is probably the placemost people might be, you know
might be most familiar with.
But then as you travel southfrom there the communities
(29:31):
become generally more smallerand heavily agricultural.
There's a little south of Galena.
Savannah.
Illinois has become kind of thewhat some folks call the blue
collar Galena.
It tends to attract people thatare interested in motorcycling
and travel around on motorcycles.
So there's a culture of barsand places to stay that really
(29:56):
cater to folks who are travelingon motorcycles, but there are
campgrounds around there as well.
Then further south from there isyou get past the Quad Cities.
There's kind of a long stretchthat's all agricultural really,
where there's not going to beall that many places to stop and
visit and the communities thatyou might stop at Keesburg,
(30:18):
oquaka, places like that,there'll be a good small town
museum or two to visit, but youmay not see enough to stick
around for longer than that, butthey're worth visiting.
Enough to stick around forlonger than that, but they're
worth visiting.
I don't know about you, butwhen I'm traveling around, small
town museums are one of myfavorite places to visit.
You get a nice insight into thecommunity itself and there are
(30:41):
these really dedicatedvolunteers that obviously love
and care for their communitiesand want to tell you about them.
So a lot of these smaller towns, like Oquaka, have their own
small town museums.
You may need to call in advanceto make sure when they're open,
because you know there may beone volunteer who only can come
once a week and to your point.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yes, I do love those museums.
Sometimes at welcoming centersyou'll have a museum about the
area and it's just a smalllittle area, but there's so much
there that you can learn and somany cool things to see and
find out about.
So I agree with you, I lovethose.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, one of the other places that I think a lot
of people will visit for thehistory is Nauvoo, illinois,
which is a very important placein Mormon history for the
Latter-day Saints Church.
It's really the place wheremany of the foundational
principles were developed byJoseph Smith, and he was
(31:43):
murdered not too far from there,just before the community had
to—were basically forced out andhad to move west.
So Nauvoo has a very importantplace in Mormon history.
It's almost like a pilgrimagesite for many people who are
members of the LDS Church.
It's an interesting place tovisit as well for anybody,
(32:04):
because the history associatedwith that period of time is
really front and center.
Then let's kind of skip onQuincy, illinois.
I really enjoy visiting Quincy.
It's for a town of its sizelike 40,000 or so people.
It's got some really impressivearchitecture and you can find
(32:27):
styles of architecture that cutacross different periods.
So it's got beautiful.
You know antebellumarchitecture, some great
Victorian architecture.
Then there are someneighborhoods where you can find
Art Deco buildings, you know.
So it's a really interestingplace and they're at their
visitor center just south oftown.
(32:48):
You can stop and you can pickup a guide if you want to just
drive around and look atdifferent kinds of building and
architecture around town.
It's also right there on theMississippi and it's on top of
the bluff, so it's got greatviews and there are a couple of
really fantastic places to eatthere as well.
And then from there it becomesvery agricultural until you get
close to the St Louismetropolitan area very
(33:09):
agricultural until you get closeto the St Louis metropolitan
area.
And just north of St Louisthere's a stretch of the Great
River Road from Alton to Graftonthat is right next to the river
, right between the river andthe bluff.
That is one of the three orfour most scenic stretches of
the drive along the Great RiverRoad.
And Grafton is a very populartourist town People, especially
(33:30):
on weekends.
It'll be very busy withvisitors.
Many of them go there to spenda night or two, to relax, to
hang out.
There are a few things to do inthe area.
There's some hiking nearby atParamarquette State Park and a
couple of other places.
But it's kind of a place thatpeople do as a day trip and like
(33:51):
to go visit, for the food andto hang out next to the river
and it's a cool little town.
They've got a bunch offestivals throughout the year
too.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Right, so we stepped into Missouri, correct?
You said St Louis.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
No, we're still on the Illinois side, but we're
across the river from St Louis.
We're still on the Illinoisside, but we're across the river
from St Louis.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh, got it Okay, just to be clear, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yep.
So we're still working our waydown the Illinois side, but
we're going to pass by St Louismetropolitan area.
The Alton is about a 30-minutedrive from downtown St Louis, a
little bit north of there, andthat stretch of river is a
pretty popular place for peopleto road trip to and drive.
So we'll continue on south fromthere and I'm going to just
(34:37):
highlight a couple of otherthings.
When you get, oh, an hour or sosouth of St Louis, or not much
far from St Louis, you start toget into an area that has a deep
French colonial history, andI'll talk more about that when
we talk about Missouri.
But there are a couple of placeson the Illinois side that
really offer a glimpse into thatFrench colonial past.
(35:00):
There's a fort that those of usin this region tend to call
Fort Charters, but probably moreappropriately Fort de Chartres.
That was a French colonial fortbuilt in the mid-1700s, and a
couple of buildings have beenreconstructed.
It's an interesting site tovisit for that history and they
(35:23):
do festivals throughout the yeartoo.
I think it's really most fun togo there when they have some
festival going on.
They do a rendezvous, usuallyin early June, to recreate kind
of that experience of the furtrade and people coming together
and Native Americans and furtraders and government officials
and cavalry and all kind ofcome assembling in the same
place and people dress up inperiod costumes and it's a whole
(35:46):
thing and it's fun to visit onthat weekend and rendezvous
happen in many places along theriver but this is one of the
bigger rendezvous and nearbyPrairie du Rocher is one of
those old communities that theroots go back before the US was
an independent country.
(36:07):
It was founded as a Frenchcolonial outpost.
Essentially it's got a coupleof things to visit.
It's a very small town but theyhave a small museum and house
an old historic house thathelped tell the story of that
area.
From there we'll just kind ofdip all the way down to Southern
Illinois and for me thesouthern quarter or so of the
(36:28):
state.
The major attraction is ShawneeNational Forest and some of it
touches on the Mississippi.
There are places that you cancamp and hike along there.
There's one particular areathat's one of my favorite spots
to go that maybe not everybodywould find as exciting as me,
but it's known as Snake Road.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
For those who can't see, I'm shaking my head no,
Right?
No, thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
So if you're deathly afraid of snakes, maybe this
isn't the place for you.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
But it's this little road that was built between a
bluff and wetlands and twice ayear snakes move between the
bluffs and the wetlands.
So the snakes winter in thewarmth and safety of the bluffs
and as the seasons change and itwarms up they move from those
(37:22):
bluffs into the wetlands wherethey will spend most of the
warmer months.
So they close the road to allauto traffic for a couple of
months in the spring and thenagain in the fall for the
reverse migration.
And it's a good time, if you'reinterested in snakes, to hop on
down there and maybe spot a few.
You don't always see them andit takes a little bit of
(37:44):
patience, but probably abouthalf the time I've gone down to
visit I've seen some snakes andyou do need to be aware that
some of them are venomouscottonmouths.
So you want to keep yourdistance regardless of what
there is.
But I talked with the parkranger who oversees that area
last year and I think he saidhe's identified 17 or 18
(38:06):
different species of snakes thatcall that area home 17 or 18
different species of snakes thatcall that area home.
So if you're really into thatand you don't mind seeing a
snake from a respectful distance, I think it's a really unique
experience that you don't findin many other places, but it's
all just really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, it sounds like a very unique experience.
I don't want to just tapepeople for me.
I'm out, thank you, but but butit does sound interesting.
Now, if it were horses then youknow that would be more
interesting to me, but there area lot of people that are into
snakes, so that sounds like acool idea.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Right.
So, yeah, I recommend that as aspot to go, and Shawnee
National Forest in general has.
It's a big area.
It covers much of southernIllinois from the Mississippi
River up to the Ohio River, withdifferent sections that are
national forests and there arestate parks mixed in in.
(39:09):
Giant City State Park inSouthern Illinois is one of my
favorite spots to go.
It's not on the Mississippi,it's an hour and a half or so
away from the Mississippi, butit's part of that area that
historically, the Ohio Riverused to cut through there closer
than where it does today.
So it's an interesting geologicmix where you have, like, giant
rocks you know that sometimeshave you know, there are these
(39:30):
giant boulders that stand out inthe middle of nowhere, or, uh,
these forests that grow aroundthese limestone cliffs and, uh,
and deep valleys.
So it's I really like exploringdown there.
It's also they've kind of growntheir own wine wine culture.
You know there are a number oflocal wineries that grow their
own grapes in that area.
(39:53):
So there's a lot of interestingstuff to do down there as well.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Now you're talking about language.
So I don't even drink wine.
I've tasted it.
I have people that really enjoywine.
I could taste differences, butI love vineyards and wineries.
They're just incredible placesto go.
So even from somebody whodoesn't really drink, it sounds
that now you're talking more myspeed I can do that.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Absolutely so of course you want a designated
driver if you're going to bedoing this right as many of
these places you'd have to drivefrom winery to winery to get
the experience.
Many of them have live music,especially on weekends, so even
if you're not there to try thewine, you could go hang out and
listen to some live music.
And it's a rural area.
There's not really a big city.
(40:41):
Carbondale is the largest citynearby and it's not that big a
city.
So it's a very laid back, know,low-key area to to travel
around.
Highly recommend it.
I'll make a quick mention at thevery southern uh, southwestern
tip of illinois, the town ofcairo.
It, let's just say it's beenthrough some difficult times and
(41:05):
it's had a substantialpopulation loss over time.
I think it's an interestingplace to learn about, to learn
the history of.
There aren't going to be toomany sites to visit there.
They do have a museum.
I would call in advance to findout if they're open.
And then, if you continuethrough town, there's Fort
Defiance State Park is right atthe confluence of the Ohio and
(41:29):
Mississippi rivers and you canstand right there with the Ohio
on your left and the Mississippion your right, and that's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Can you define what that means?
What was the word?
I lost it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
The confluence.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The confluence.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yes, yeah, it's just a spot where two rivers meet, so
the two rivers become one, andat this spot, like these, are
two of the biggest rivers inNorth America that merge into
the Mississippi.
The Ohio River ends and theriver that continues on is still
the Mississippi, but it's muchbigger, I will like.
All the caution I'll offer isthat that part floods often this
(42:10):
is one of the other things tokeep in mind about traveling
along the Mississippi in generalis that the river rises, the
river falls and sometimes youcan't get to places because the
water is too high.
And Fort Defiance State Parkfloods almost every year, some
years worse than others.
I think it's probablyunderwater right now, but if
(42:31):
it's not at flood stage, if theOhio, especially, is not at
flood stage, then I think it'sgood just to go to this site to
be able to see where these tworivers come together.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
That sounds amazing.
I actually was in Arizona andat a vineyard and winery and I
just I spent days there, I lovedit and I never had one sip of
wine.
I didn't need to, it was justamazing.
But there is a confluence there.
I forgot what the rivers arethat come together and it was
(43:03):
just an amazing.
It seems so simple and nothingthat big a deal, but it was just
amazing.
So that sounds incredible.
Putting that on my bucket listawesome.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, uh, so, uh.
So that kind of finishesillinois I guess okay.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So before we jump into missouri right, which is
next make sure you keep me ontrack here.
I just want to just take apause for a second here and in
all of the information that youare giving, that is amazing
information for my listeners.
We actually stopped the podcastand I asked my editor about
(43:43):
making this a two part series.
Well, when we started theinformation you were giving, the
wealth of knowledge, I didn'twant to cut it short.
I didn't want to have to getyou down to a very narrow
because you're giving so muchgreat information.
So for my listeners, we aregoing to cover Missouri, we have
(44:05):
some other things we're goingto talk about and then part two
is going to cover our other fivestates.
I'm really excited While we'retalking about traveling so much
traveling.
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(44:33):
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So there are 12 testimonials.
There is a link in the shownotes for that.
(44:54):
So just to help you as you'retraveling, save some money here.
Okay, so let's hit Missouri.
These are the Upper MississippiRiver.
We call it right.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
What counts as the Upper Mississippi, I guess
depends on who you ask, becausethere is some variation of what
people consider the UpperMississippi.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I was just going to say so you gave me this, your
I'm reading and I don't know seewhat it's called.
There's a PDF that I'm readingand you called these five the
Upper Mississippi.
So that is what I'm going byand, yes, people have their own,
but it looked like a goodstopping starting point.
(45:37):
So we're going to put that inthe show notes so people could
look at the picture I'm lookingat and there's so much
information on this document.
So you have with Missouri.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Well, let's talk some about Missouri, and there's
quite a bit to cover here too.
This is another area where theriver and the communities change
quite a bit as you travel fromnorth to south and, of course,
like if we're starting in thenorthern part along in Missouri,
you have to talk about Hannibal.
We can't skip Hannibal, andmost people will know that
(46:09):
because of Mark Twain, andHannibal does all it can to make
the most of its connection toMark Twain.
So my feeling is a little mixed, I'll be honest.
I do think, like the Mark Twainsites in Hannibal are really
good.
The Mark Twain Museum, I think,is something everybody should
(46:30):
visit and tour around.
His childhood home is part ofthat admission, and that's a
good place to visit as well.
Some of the rest of the stuff intown, I think, tends to get a
little too kitschy for my tastes.
You know it tends to maybe playtoo much, take advantage of too
much of the whole Mark Twaintheme, but there are still good
(46:54):
places to eat and the MainStreet area is almost entirely
local shops.
I have a very strong preferenceto patronize locally owned
businesses as much as possible,and there's plenty of that in
that section of Hannibal.
They also have riverboat tours.
So it's one of the places whereyou can do a day cruise for a
(47:14):
couple of hours, maybe a lunchcruise or maybe an evening
cruise around sunset, sometimeswith music, so you can get out
on the water and you can kind ofimagine this world as Mark
Twain would have known it andget some sense about how that
might have influenced his ownworldviews.
But the Mark Twain Museum isdefinitely a place everybody
(47:38):
should visit.
As you continue on throughthere again, you're going to go
through a stretch where you'renot going to see much of the
river, but there's some, um,good historic river towns that
are worth at least drivingthrough, maybe stopping and
visiting a local museum if it'sopen, or a bite of eat.
Louisiana and uh andclarksville fit that bill and um
(47:59):
, there were.
They also have a couple placeswhere you can just kind of stop
next to the river and see what'sgoing on on the river.
Then you kind of get intoMetropolitan St Louis and we
could do a couple of shows juston that.
So we'll just kind of I'll justhighlight a couple of things
about this that gosh, there'sjust so much to say.
(48:21):
So when you get a little closerto the metropolitan area.
Then you get near the confluenceof the Missouri and the
Mississippi rivers and I thinkyou know this is one of my
favorite places to go.
I have my own spot that I liketo go when I need to get away
from the city and it's up at theconfluence area.
There's a place called ColumbiaBottoms Conservation Area.
(48:42):
That is right next to bothrivers so there's some hiking
trails around there.
The area floods regularly too,so it's a little bit of a
transition right now wherethey're moving away from some of
the hands-on management thatthey used to do to keep
everything open and accessibleand letting things get a little
more wild.
But you can.
(49:02):
There's an area where you canpark and then walk about a mile
to get to see the confluencedirectly of the Missouri and the
Mississippi.
River is from that southeastcorner of the confluence and
there are some places you canhike along there that are kind
of semi-marked trails.
It's just the other side of theMissouri River.
(49:25):
You're still on the Missouriside of the Mississippi, but
you're then north of theMissouri River.
You're still on the Missouriside of the Mississippi but
you're then north of theMissouri River and Confluence
it's Jones.
Confluence Point State Park hasa nice parking lot and a short,
like five-minute walk on apaved sidewalk to get from the
parking lot to see the spotwhere the two rivers merge and
(49:45):
that's a really, really goodview from there.
There's a little bit of hikingaround there, but it's not the
kind of place you're going tospend a couple of hours.
You'll probably be there for afairly quick stop to take a look
at the two rivers and again,like there's a, there's this
narrow point that kind ofdisappears into the rivers where
you could theoretically standwith one foot in the Mississippi
(50:06):
and one foot in the Missouri,stand with one foot in the
Mississippi and one foot in theMissouri.
So if you're into those youknow nerdy things like me then
you might want to do that.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
That sounds great.
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
In St Louis proper.
You know the main river-relatedsite is going to be the Gateway
Arch and if you've never beenthere you should definitely go.
They did a major renovation sixor seven years ago now and
changed quite a bit.
So if you're driving an RV intodowntown, you know you may not
(50:39):
do that.
I don't quite know like howeverybody in an RV might
approach that.
There is no parking right nextto the arch.
Almost all of the parkingassociated with the arch now is
in parking garages downtown andthen you have to walk from there
to get to the arch itself.
So keep that in mind if you'regoing to visit the arch and you
(51:00):
don't have an alternate vehiclethat you could take into the
city.
But it's so worth a visit.
The museum under the arch isfantastic.
They completely redid that aspart of the renovation.
You can ride up an elevator tothe top of the arch and if
you've never done that, I highlyrecommend it.
(51:20):
If you're claustrophobic, youknow, yeah, maybe not, you know,
if you don't really likeenclosed spaces because those
capsules you ride up, then theelevator pretty cozy and you're
going to get to know yourneighbors pretty well for the
couple of minutes it takes toget to the top, but it's worth
the experience.
I find the engineering of thatreally fascinating, and then you
(51:42):
get views from the top of thearch where you can look out over
St Louis and over Illinois andsee quite a bit of the
Mississippi from there.
So if you're only going to doone thing river related in St
Louis, then you probably shoulddo the Gateway Arch experience.
There's a lot to cover inMissouri as well, and I'll do a
couple more highlights.
So the next major highlightreally, as you're traveling
south, is going to be in StGenevieve, and that's really the
(52:03):
heart of the French colonialterritory, really the heart of
the French colonial territory,and Saint Genevieve has sections
of it now that are managed bythe National Park Service.
It's, I think, saint GenevieveNational Historic Park.
So there are a number ofbuildings that date to that
French colonial period thatsurvive today, so over 200 years
(52:25):
old, really interestingarchitectural styles.
You can tour much of that Again.
Lots of bed and breakfasts,lots of places to tour the
architecture in that area, andthe Center for French Colonial
Life really gives a good senseof what that heritage is like.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Okay, is that Missouri as much?
I know there's got to be a tonmore.
You feel like we've coveredMissouri pretty well here.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, I'll just say Cape Girardeau would be the next
sort of big city along the wayand it's worth visiting too.
But you know you can read up onthat.
It's a good river town and hasa couple of sites worth visiting
as well, but probably mostpeople will see St Genevieve and
then continue on.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Okay, okay.
So let's talk a little bitabout you are interested in this
whole idea of RVing.
I'm going to make a suggestion.
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They have six locations acrossthe country, one of them in
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I have notes so I knew that,and so if you're looking for
(53:39):
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I want to take a minute nowbecause it is time for the
question of the week and we aredoing this in two parts.
But I want to cover thequestion of the week, so I'm
(54:02):
going to ask you the question,which I think is going to be
tough for you, dean, and Ididn't tell you about this
question, so I'm going to askyou the question.
I'm going to be tough for you,dean, and I didn't tell you
about this question, so I'mgoing to ask you the question.
I'm going to give you a fewminutes while I talk about
innovative toll solutions.
Question is what do you have onyour bucket list?
(54:22):
I know you just covered a slewof things.
You're shaking your head You'renot cringing.
I know you just covered a slewof things.
You're shaking your head,you're not cringing.
What is on your bucket listthat you would recommend to my
listeners?
Now, while you're thinking aboutthat, innovative Toll Solutions
is a toll pass that covers all48 states.
(54:43):
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(55:05):
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will take care of it for you.
Okay, I could see Dean is stillthinking but what would you?
What would be a place, anexperience, something to do or
(55:27):
see that is on your bucket list?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
So are we talking anywhere around the world, or
just the Mississippi Anywherearound the world, anywhere you
want.
Well, on my personal bucketlist is I want to get to
Antarctica.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Probably not what you're expecting, but I have a
fascination with remote places,and Antarctica is about as
remote as one can get, althoughthere are cruises that go down
there, so it's not quite asremote as it seems.
But I really would like to beable to step on that continent
(56:05):
and walk around and just kind ofsee the place for myself.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Wow, that's a cool suggestion.
I don't think that has everbeen.
I ask this question of peopleevery week and that has probably
never been the answer, but thatsounds really cool and
certainly remote, so I'll haveto investigate it.
See if I'm going to add that tomy bucket list.
It's now time to talk aboutcampgrounds and, as we talked
about in the show, toinvestigate Antarctica.
(56:34):
See if I'm going to add that tomy bucket list.
It's now time to talk aboutcampgrounds and, as we talked
about in the show, there arecampgrounds that are around all
of the places that Deanmentioned, and the easiest way
to find a campground in the areaand you gave some great
suggestions, so I hope peopletake those into consideration.
But a great way to find allthings camping is by going to
(56:57):
campgroundsrvlifecom.
It is part of the RV Life ProSuite of products and it will
cover all types of campgrounds,like I said private state
campgrounds, corps of Engineers,blm land, you name it.
It's going to be covered there.
If you don't have the RV LifePro Suite of products, there is
a link in the show notes.
Once you get to check out,it'll give you 25% off for any
(57:21):
new users.
Now, as I said I'm not going tothank you and close out this
episode.
Well, maybe I will, but firstof all, the first thing we need
to do, let me back up, becausewe are making this a part two
and I just decided that in themiddle of the interview.
So here we are.
I'm glad I'm the boss of thispodcast.
People can get you by going toMississippiValleyTravelercom
(57:47):
correct, that's the best way.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, and I'll just make a quick plug, pretty much
everything that we've talkedabout is in my Great River Road
guidebook.
So if this is a lot ofinformation and you're trying to
take notes, the Great RoadTripping, the Great River Road,
volume 1.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkthere's going to be a Volume 2,
but Volume 1 does exist and itcovers the upper half of the
river.
It includes all of that andmore.
(58:10):
And then my website,mississippivalleytravelercom,
has a section on river towns andit includes a lot of that same
information as well.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
If you would prefer just to kind of surf through
different websites, Right, andthat's what I was looking at as
you're talking so I couldvisualize on the map.
I'm learning these states thatI really wasn't as familiar with
, so I highly recommend peoplelooking at road tripping the
Great River Road, because it'sbeen.
I've been reading it for thelast week in preparation for our
(58:43):
interview.
Okay, I do want to thank youfor people who are watching this
episode.
I want to thank you very muchfor being on.
Do you also have social mediathat we can lead people to?
I didn't ask.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah, I'm a little inconsistent with that, to be
honest.
I have been pulling back some,but I do have an Instagram feed
and I think I'm at deanclink onInstagram.
I would say that's probably thebest place, the most reliable
place, where I post, and whenI'm traveling I tend to post a
lot of pictures, so a lot ofpretty pictures from the
Mississippi and other places,but there's also the Mississippi
(59:19):
Valley Traveler page onFacebook.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
Okay, so you're going to get me that information.
I'll post it in the show notes.
You said you're not consistent,so if people want to reach out
to me, we want to hear questions, comments, suggestions from
people.
You and I both want to hearthat and they can reach out to
me on Instagram or Facebook atRV Life Podcast.
And yeah, I mean this wasincredible.
(59:45):
I cannot wait for part two.
We're going to cover the nextfive states in the lower half of
the Mississippi River.
This is really exciting and,being that right now this is
going to be posted in the wintermonths, people may want to
start out in this lower halfbecause of weather and work
(01:00:05):
their way up.
If they decide they want totravel up the Mississippi River,
that's cool.
Anybody who's traveled it,anybody who is thinking about
doing that.
I really want to hear from you.
I want to thank my listenersfor listening and remember
life's a journey.
Live each day to the fullest,without regrets.
I'm Patti Hunt and you've beenlistening to the RV Life Podcast
(01:00:29):
.
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