We got up this morning with a plan to do a little sight seeing and a trip to Diebold's Orchard in Benton, MO. First stop was downtown Sikeston to do a little sightseeing and a step back in history.
Did know that this part of Missouri was originally swampland, marshes, and prairies?
A nearly impenetrable swamp covered Southeast Missouri below Benton, Mo., until the first years of the 20th century. The exceptions were the land formation to the west known as Crowley's Ridge and a much smaller rise running north to south from the Benton foothills to New Madrid, Mo., that came to be called the Sikeston Ridge.
The swamplands were known as The Missouri Glades and the prairies were known as the Big Prairie with groves of trees that appeared as islands in a lake of water. In the early 1900’s a huge effort began to drain the water. The Little River Drainage District began reclaiming millions of acres of swampland. The result was the richest farmland in the world that now yields, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and other crops.
Our first stop of the day was to see the Timeline Mural.
Then Historic Downtown Sikeston…This shop makes some really neat Metal Works!
There are some really nice historic houses in this area also.
Also we went by the “Columns”. This is the location where the first Baptist Church west of the Mississippi was constructed. It was destroyed by fire and the townspeople constructed these Columns to represent where the church sat.
We drove by the Depot and took a couple of photos from outside. Here is a flagman made out of metal
and on the backside of the depot is some old men sitting and visiting…lol.
We saw these cute little signs lined up along the street in Sikeston. They are made of wood and painted…and holding a small American Flag.
Here are a few of the signs close up…
We headed out of town 13 miles toward the Orchard. They had Missouri Peaches, Apples, and fresh Zucchini, Corn, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Blackberries, Watermelon, Cantaloupe, and lots of Jams, Butters, and Preserves.
After we left the Orchard we headed toward Cairo, IL and the Mississippi River. We crossed the river from the north into Illinois
We went in to Cairo to do a little looking around and saw a sign pointing toward the Historic Downtown Cairo so we headed that way….this is sooo sad! We looked around for a few minutes, took a few photos
We left Cairo and headed across the Ohio River in to Kentucky….
and off we went to cross the Mississippi again on the way back to Sikeston. The bridge is very narrow! I think I’m gonna sleep through it tomorrow with the RV attached.
We made a stop at WalMart for a few items and then it was off to the RV Park
It started raining again…we just can’t seem to get away from the rain…it rained so hard that when we got back to the RV it was standing in about 5” of water.
We got all our things brought in and heated up our leftovers from Lambert’s for Dinner tonight..they were as good today as yesterday. My leftover Chicken Fried Steak…
