Friday, May 25, 2007

May 25, 2007 Cape Girardeau, MO

Today we rode to Cape Girardeau, Mo. The ride was approximately 49 miles long. We left the hotel around 7:00. There was very little to see along the way so I only stopped a couple of times, once at a gas station where we bought drinks and then twice at the Sag wagon to refill my water bottle.

Once I got to Cape Girardeau I went with four other women for lunch at a restaurant called Panera Bread. Apparently there are around the country but none are in Tucson. I reminded me a lot of Beyond Bread.

After lunch we took a shuttle to the historic downtown section of Cape Girardeau. This bridge is the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge. After seven years of construction it opened to traffic in December of 2003. It was named for an eight-term Congressman.





This is one part of the many murals on the river wall. This wall holds back the river during flood stages. It is 1.1 miles long and has an average height of 20 feet above and below the ground.

This was the first panel of the Mississippi River Tales Mural. I loved it because it showed the Carolina parakeet that once lived in this area. It reminded me of the parrots that once lived in the mountains of southern Arizona.




This is the Common Pleas Courthouse completed in 1854. These 59 steps were the first concrete construction in Missouri outside of St. Louis or Kansas City. The cement was originally ballast for a ship that came from England.


This great old Coca-Cola sign on the side of a building speaks for itself. A 3 cent Coke relieves fatigue!


A section of the Missouri Wall of Fame. It is over 500 feet long and portrays the images of 45 famous Missourians. Those depicted on the wall include:
Burt Bacharach
Josephine Baker
Thomas Hart Benton The painter.
Senator Thomas Hart Benton U.S. Senator from Missouri 1821-1851. Served 5 terms.
Yogi Berra
George Caleb Bingham
Susan Elizabeth Blow, founder of first public kindergarten
Omar Bradley
George Brett
Lou Brock
Jack Buck
August Busch, of Anheuser-Busch
Calamity Jane
Dale Carnegie
George Washington Carver
Kate Chopin
Walter Cronkite
T. S. Eliot
Don Faurot, University of Missouri football coach
Eugene Field
Redd Foxx
Joe Garagiola, baseball player and sportscaster
Linda M. Godwin
Betty Grable
Jean Harlow
Langston Hughes
John Huston
Jesse and Frank James
Scott Joplin
Rush Limbaugh
Stan Musial
Marie Elizabeth Oliver, creator of the state flag of Missouri
Rose O'Neill
James Cash Penney
Marlin Perkins, host of Wild Kingdom
John J. Pershing
Vincent Price
Joseph Pulitzer
Ginger Rogers
Tom Sawyer
Dred Scott
Jess Stacy, swing pianist
Harry S. Truman
Porter Wagoner, country musician
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Tennessee Williams

A close up of a section of the mural.


My roommate, Jenna, said we pretty much covered the things of interest in town. That is except for the Rush Limbaugh hometown tour which included the hospital in which he was born and the studio in which he did his first broadcast. We both decided to pass on it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the great things about Panera bread is that they almost always have free internet access...so you can post a blog entry from your bike while you're having lunch!

triathleteb said...

well, we are all very dissapointed that we won't be getting trinkets from the Rush tour. Maybe next time you are in MO you will make more time for it? (ha, ha)You are doing awesome! Keep up the great work.