Into the Midwest

The Saturday afternoon after Loretta Lynn’s finished we travelled two hours north to stay a few days at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky (http://www.lbl.org/Home.html). We had booked to stay at the Energy Lake campground and to catch up with some fellow Kiwis (the MacLeans) who are touring around the US in a RV like us.

It was great to catch up with Don and Rose MacLean and their five kids. We got to talk about our RV experiences and New Zealand. We also got to hang out at the lake the next day, do some canoeing and go to the elk and bison prairie in the evening.

On Monday we travelled north again for three hours to St Louis, Missouri. In the evening we went and ate out beside the Mississippi river and then just before dark we travelled up the Arch to see the views. The Arch represents the gateway to the West. It stands 630 feet high and the five of us sat in a small tram to get to the top. It isn’t as tall as the Sky Tower in Auckland which is 1,076 feet but the views are just as good. Facts and figures about the Arch can be found at http://www.gatewayarch.com/Arch/info/arch.aspx or on wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_arch. When we got back down to the bottom of the Arch we toured the museum on the Westward expansion and then watched a movie on Lewis & Clark who first made the transcontinental crossing of North America in the early 1800s.

The next day Janine and the kids went to the zoo and city museum in St Louis (http://www.stlzoo.org/ & http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp). We then headed north to the Hempens in the south eastern corner of Iowa. We were happy to see them after talking about visiting them since Lake Whitney in March. Over the next few days the kids played together, rode and swam in the pool.

After staying with the Hempens for a week we all headed north to go to the pro national motocross race at Milville, Minnesota (http://www.springcreekmx.com/). Spring Creek MX Park is about a six hour drive north from the Hempens. There was not a lot to see on the way other than corn fields. Spring Creek MX Park is such an awesome track. We have not seen anything like it in NZ. It has huge elevation changes with step ups and step downs, ruts and a sand section with large whoops. The boys (amateurs) got to ride and race on Wednesday to Friday before the pros rode on the weekend. The boys thought it was the best track. Also, the girls (Janine and Sarah, Tracy and Jennifer) got to do have some time to themselves by going shopping at the Mall of America in St Paul, the biggest retail and entertainment complex in the USA.

On the way back to the Hempens from Milville MN, we stopped off at the John Deere factory in Moline Illinois for a tour.