On Our Way to Paducah, KY 4/16/2009

We packed up early this morning and bid a fond farewell to Lady Luck Casino and headed north up RT 55 and on into Kentucky. Before we reached Kentucky we had to cross into Illinois as there is only one bridge to cross the Mississippi between Memphis, TN and Cairo, IL and that is the one we had to cross. But before we crossed the bridge we stopped in Cairo at Fort Defiance Park and saw The Confluence of America and also to do 4 caches that were there, a multi-cache, a virtual cache and 2 earthcaches. First a little background about the fort. Fort Defiance, known as Camp Defiance during the American Civil War, is a former military fortification located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers near Cairo in Alexander County, Illinois. The strategic significance of the site has been known since prehistoric times with archaeological evidence of warfare dating to the Mississippian era. It is the southernmost point in the state of Illinois. Fort Defiance Park, formerly a State Park, is owned and maintained by the city of Cairo. At 279 feet (85 m) elevation, Fort Defiance Point is Illinois' lowest point. Fort Defiance was established at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to thwart the confederate invasion and blockade the trade of the South. From this spot was launched General Grant's Great Flanking movement up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers which began at Fort Henry and ended at Vicksburg, giving the Union complete control of the Mighty Mississippi River.
Now about the confluence. Long known to the Indians who used the two great rivers as highways for trade and war, this junction of the Ohio and Mississippi was first sighted by Europeans when Marquette and Joliet glided past in 1673. Ten years later La Salle explored the area and established France’s claim to the Mississippi valley. From that time on this confluence was recognized as a strategic site for settlement and fortification. George Rogers Clark, following the capture of Kaskaskia in 1778, stationed armed boats at this junction to guard against attacks on the Illinois country by the British or Spanish. Here in 1811 the “New Orleans”, first steamboat to navigate western waters, lay at anchor during three nights of the New Madrid earthquake. In April of 1861 Fort Defiance was established at the confluence to thwart Confederate invasion and blockade the trade of the South. From here was launched General Grant’s great flanking movement up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, which began at Fort Henry and ended at Vicksburg, giving the Union complete control of the Mississippi. The Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of 2,320 mi from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in Gulf of Mexico. From its source, the river falls 1,475 feet until it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, PA. The Ohio River falls 440 feet along it's route to the confluence at Cairo. It really was interesting to see where the 2 rivers meet and the swirling waters where they come together. We did our caches and we were off to Paducah.
After crossing the bridges, which by the way were very very narrow as you can see by the pictures Mom took out the front window and it was a little hairy passing the tractor trailers, we took RT 60 on into Paducah. Along the way we could not believe the damage we could see along the way from the January 27th ice storm that just tore up the area. There were 33 people killed and 101 counties and 75 cities had declared states of emergency. Thousands of people in ice-caked Kentucky awoke in motels and shelters, asked to leave their homes by authorities who said emergency teams in some areas were too strapped to reach everyone in need of food, water and warmth. Dozens of deaths have been reported and many people are pleading for a faster response to the power outages. About 438,000 homes and businesses across Kentucky were without power, down from more than 600,000, the largest outage in state history, and as far away as Oklahoma, around 10,000 customers still had no electricity. The outages disabled water systems in much of the western part of the state, where some in rural areas resorted to dipping buckets in a creek. Authorities warned it could be days or weeks before power was restored in the most remote spots. They have said that the storm damage would reach $185 million dollars. It really again was unbelievable at the piles and piles of brush we could see along the way.
We arrived in Paducah and are staying at the Duck Creek RV Park. It seems like a nice park as the owners are very friendly and the rest rooms are extremely clean. The sites are a little close together but that doesn't make much differance to us. Next week they are having the 25th Anniversary of the American Quilter's Society Quilt Show which is sponsored by the National Quilt Museum, which is here in Paducah, and they expect 75,000 people in town for the show. The owner of the campgrounds said he is booked solid and some people are even doubling up on sites with other campers. Well we got set up and took a drive to Wally World to get some groceries and came back and Mom did our logs and we had dinner. One other quick note when we got off the Interstate we saw a huge huge huge pile of brush that they have been hauling in with trucks and piling up as they still have Emergency Response Teams here cleaning up. Well time to say until next time we miss you all and love you. Mom & Dad