November 17-18, 2024 Trail of Tears State Park, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

 70 degrees and partly cloudy.

Missouri welcomes you,  we drove through Nashville, Illinois, - home of the hornets, couple signs from the campground- watch out for ticks, mosquitos and a thief, and a round root in our campsite. Fall colors near our campsite. 

The bus in Mississippi river campground in the Trail of Tears state park. A view of the Mississippi river from our campsite. 

There is a train that runs between the river and the campground, whistles blowing, red lights flashing and beeping. Hope it does not come through in the night.  Sunset.

We had dinner at the Minglewood brewery. John with his IPA. The Christmas decorations are already up in Cape Girardeau. 

73 degrees and partly sunny. John at the Bushyhead Memorial. The memorial is the grave of one of the many Indians who died on the trail of tears. View of the Mississippi from a viewpoint higher in the park. 

Lake Boutin. They really don't want dogs at the lake.

Fall colors on the drive  Mississippi River scenic overlook. We hiked on the Lake trail. Drove  by the Peewah trails that are in the Indian Creek Wild area. 

View upriver and down river of the Mississippi River from the scenic view point. We are still above where the Ohio rivers empties into the Mississippi. It gets much bigger combined with the Ohio. Puff balls, red oak leaves, burning bush, wet leaves in a stream and cool roots. 

John on the Lake Trail. Boutin Lake from the lake trail.

John on the Lake trail. The trail was hard to find with the fallen leaves all over it. The trail description says 'natural surface dirt, mud, gravel, shifting rocks, slippery surface, rocks, roots,  downed vegetation, steep grades, drop-offs. The trail goes up to ridges, then back down to steep ravines. It said it was 2.2 miles and would take 2 hours 15 minutes to hike. It was more like 3 miles and we did it in one hour and 15 minutes. Very pretty colors. 

John on the trail.  Three types of ferns, 4 types of fungus. There are tulip popular, paw paw trees, american beech, cucumber magnolia, white oaks and hickory trees here. Last light on the trees across the Mississippi river from camp. 

Sunset.