We are staying at the River Campground at Trail of Tears State Park and we are right along the Mississippi River. I took this photo from the back of our campsite. There is a chain link fence, then the railroad track, then the parking lot for the boat ramp and then the river. For the past three days the river has seemed busy, with tugs passing every few hours. The largest array of barges we’ve seen is five long and two wide, ten in all. I think that much larger ones are possible, but the river levels are very low, and I wonder if they have been unable to maneuver the larger ones. Today we had seen no river traffic at all, but as I sit here writing a 10 barge array is going upstream.
The trains have not stopped. There are about seven or eight trains a day that pass – close! I was sitting just at the back of the camper when this one came by. The park road to the boat ramp crosses the tracks less than 100 yards from the trailer and the trains blow their whistles for it. It makes for an interesting experience, if not a peaceful one.
Matey seems unfazed by the trains. He is much more interested in the many armadillos here. This is one we saw, I thought it was letting us get this close because it was right next to a culvert that it could hide in if we came closer.
But this one kept digging around paying no attention to Matey.
In fact, it came right up to him. It’s now hard to walk Matey around here, because he’s more interested in hunting armadillos than in walking. He can smell them all around.
Today we drove through the park to an overlook. You can see the sandbars in the low river.
We then drove about 20 miles further north to Tower Rock. This odd geological formation is a well known landmark on the Mississippi. The Lewis and Clark expedition camped here on their way up to the Missouri.
The rock appears to be a cut off extension of this bluff.
When the water is low enough you can walk out to the Tower Rock. We couldn’t, but there was a lot of exposed riverbed we did walk on.
Since we were out we drove on up to a disc golf course. This was in a city park and it was a nice one. The park was huge and we ended up walking almost two miles to play. It was a nice day, and this has been another nice stop, although fall is catching up to us.
On the Roam Again 
How interesting to be able to see all the river traffic.
Loved the pics of the armadillos. Impressed Matey was able to get so close to one. Walking our trails we mostly see bunnies and lately a larger coyote a couple times, of course there’s the ever present squitrrel population!
Love you, Judy
LikeLike