Missouri

And we have arrived at the last state of this trip known as American Expedition #3, Missouri!!. The next state is Arkansas but we will be there for a very different reason: the storage unit that we found is in Conway AR and if you remember, it is the town where it all started 2 years ago, Conway AR therefore AR was the first state in our list.

Missouri is a great state and St Louis, one of the most populated cities in the state, boasts a well known landmark: The Arch ( which we visited) and there is a town equally visited by national and international tourists….. Branson!! It’s like being in a small version of Disneyworld in Orlando FL. I wish we could bring the time back 20 years so we could enjoy the attractions with our children… that town offers more than 100 shows to choose from.

Known as The Arch, it was a monument dedicated to the western pioneers who were commanded to explore the lands west of the Mississippi river. The Arch overlooks the river itself and you can have a view from a set of windows at the top at 630 ft.

It is hard to believe that 2.4 million people visited the site in 2023; that is 6,500 people overy day of the year!!! Those cable cars inside work pretty hard to get people up and down!!

Mock up of the cable cars installed inside The Arch with a capacity of 5. If you suffer from claustrophobia it might not be a good idea to ride for a couple of minutes in a cabin with just one window towards the interior where the view that you have is just metallic structure and cables.

Now, the view is spectacular!! If you look on one side you’ll see Missouri, but if you look to the other side, then you see Illinois and the Mississippi River dividing the two states

This marvel of structure measures 630 ft height and 630 ft wide

Since the purpose of the structure was to commemorate the hard work of explorers in search of land mapping on the West, there is an interesting musseum in a huge hall below the Arch structure worth the visit

The city used to be a very important port for traders and public in general

Someone told us that we should go visit a beautiful town ( particularly the historical area) so off we went to St Charles!!!

Look what we found in one of the streets of St Charles… a VW camper…. isn’t it beautiful?

And here you learn that St Charles served at some point in time as the state capitol of Missouri!

Tree number 28 was planted at the Covered Bridge RV Park in St Louis.

Having visited St Louis, the only thing left was to drive south, hit Branson and cross the state line towards Arkansas.

Branson was HOT but that didn’t stop us from visiting the city and some of the attractions. One good thing is that Branson’s neighbor is nothing more and nothing less that the Ozarks lake, a nature wonder!! The lake’s shoreline is 1,100 miles long – longer than the shoreline of California!! It was a sunday when we went for a walk by the lake and you just imagine the amount of boats sailing along the lake; plenty of holidaymakers enjoying water activities.

This ship offers two journeys on the lake and if you want a nice lunch or dinner, it will cost you $190 per head… We missed this part 😂

One of the many attractions in Branson, Titanic Museum which claims to be the most realistic museum of all

I believe Orlando in FL has the same attraction as this one

So, after three days in Branson, it was time to direct the compass back home ( Scotty’s home) so we headed to Arkansas.

It was time to do some preventive maintenance; the coach has behaved so so well for such a long trip (11,000 miles and very very few issues to resolve). Beautiful machine is what Fleetwood came up with back in 2006!!

And of course it was also time for a good wash but you won’t believe where these pictures were taken: the previous owner (Sam) and his lovely wife (Mandy) were kind enough to let us use their property grounds to spend almost 5 hours on the cleaning, and they even helped!!!

Scotty is indeed very fortunate to have 2 daddys looking after this beauty

Finally, time to go for a looooong sleep

An adventure that began in Sep 22, at this point we can say that we have managed successfully to fill out the map as planned; a journey that would take us from 3 to 5 years to complete and after 26 states already visited, we envision it will stretch to 5 years. Having done the largest states of central and western US and Canada, we have the northeast for 2025 and southeast for 2026 left for this task to be completed. The map certainly looks awesome! So many memories, so many natural wonders, a handful of difficult moments on the road, a storm here and there, so many nice people that we met, etc etc. And Scotty looks better than ever! I bet this coach is so happy every time the storage unit door opens up as the only thing that comes to its mind is that the adventure continues!!