A history lesson in Missouri

After a fun stay in Tennessee, we were westward bound. The next stop was Missouri, and this was the first new sticker for the map on the side of our trailer. We were very excited, but didn't really know what to expect. As it turns out, this would be one of our favorite campgrounds of the whole trip!

Ready for the next leg of the journey.

The campground was off the road and way back down a hill, in the woods, against a river. It was quite pretty, but we soon learned there was much more to it than just a campground. 

Reading the plaques around the area (which I always love to do during our walks, much to Rose's irritation), the entire campground used to be a town! There were foundations all over the place leftover from the buildings that used to stand there. You could see remnants of where the town hall, market, and many of the houses once stood. They even had pictures of the residents walking around town posted in front of the buildings. It was super cool!

And the campsite was beautiful to boot!

So why wasn't the town there anymore? Well, apparently this river had (and still has) a tendency to flood, badly. There were water marks all up the side of the probably 30-foot tall bridge we had to drive under to get to the park. After one particularly rough flood, all the residents evacuated the town and made their way upstream to the current location of Greenville, Missouri. 

Once the river was dammed and the floods were mostly in control (there was another bad flood here a couple years before we visited), the site was turned into the Old Greenville Recreation Area.

If you take the history back a little farther (and darker...), this was also one of the starting points for the Trail of Tears. It was amazing to be standing and camping in a spot with so much history that was still somewhat in-tact! There was even an old cemetery with some of the Native Americans, townspeople, and Confederate soldiers who all made their way through Old Greenville. 

A tree carving in the cemetery.

We found the best way to take in all the history and beauty (and to get around) was by skateboard! The land was mostly flat, which was great for newbie skaters like us. We had a blast skooting around the campground, down to the river, and even through some of the woods trails. All in all, we had a blast in Missouri.

​This is exactly why we love traveling the way we do. You never know the amazing things you'll stumble upon on the road. 

With another stop in the books, it was time to start our crossing of the "flyover" states — but we were confident we'd find plenty of interesting things along the way.