Five States in One Day -or- Cairo to Braggadocio

Today we managed to find our way into and out of 5 states! We started in western Kentucky, where we camped overnight. Here's Curt performing one of the essential camp chores...that man never passes,up an opportunity to move along a little farther in a good book!

Before too long we found ourselves crossing the Onio River into Illinois. There were no welcome signs, or state line signs...but that was ok, because we were in Illinois (the historic city of Cairo) for less than two minutes!

The Ohio River:

Then suddenly we were crossing the mighty Mississippi (which wasn't quite so mighty upstream, before the Ohio River emptied into it!) into Missouri:

Quite the barge there....

Now that we're farther south, we're seeing more and more kudzu. For those of you who aren't familiar with kudzu, it's an indefatigable vine that was brought to the U.S. by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from India for soil stabilization. They figured that grazing animals, especially cows, would keep it under control. Not so much. Even goats won't eat it, so it covers most of the trees and shrubs (and many buildings) all over the south. 

 

Once we hit Missouri, the ground flattened out. Most of the terrain we drove through is alluvium, or River bottom lands from the Mississippi River moving back and forth across the area over the centuries. 

Not especially scenic, but very important to our country's culture and economy, as we passed many cotton fields. 

It was fun watching the acrobatics of the crop dusters, wheeling around, looping over and under telephone wires, and firing off a line of spray before shooting skyward again. Those guys are crazy!

Here was an unusual sign. Did you know that Missouri has a town named Braggadocio? I wonder how that came to be?

In mid-afternoon we crossed into Arkansas and stopped at a lovely welcome station. We found out that singer Johnny Cash grew up nearby. 

And then over the Tennessee border. Tonight we're outside of Memphis. We decided to wait on seeing the Memphis sights until we have more time to enjoy Beall Street and all the music opportunities. So tomorrow we'll push off for Arkansas again, heading for Little Rock. We plan to spend a couple of days there and enjoy our 39th anniversary while we're there. And then we'll continue southwest toward home (wherever home may be!).