Day 9

Today we went to Wilson's Creek Battle Field National Park. And...because we are just so cool, we have a National Park Pass, so we didn't have to pay!
We saw the graves of several people from the 1800. Here is Melodee trying to decipher a poem written on a grave.

This is the "Ray" family house, in front of which the battle of Wilson's Creek took place. The father of the family is rumored to have watched the battle from the front porch while his 9 children and wife were in the cellar.

The Kitchen

Next, we went to see a living history demonstration of Civil War battles.

The men carried and shot muskets typical of that time period. They showed us how the solderers would tear the packet of gunpowder, pour the gunpowder down the barrel, shove it in with the ramrod, put the pressure cap on, load the .69 musket ball down the barrel, aim, shoot and do it all over again. They were supposed to be able to do all of this three times in a minute. Many Civil War solderers averaged once or twice a minute.

Talking with a man about his musket.

Later, we went to a natural spring house. They built the house around the spring and it is still a very abundant with clean, cold water. I must admit we took advantage of the cool water and splashed our faces a bit!

We had a great time visiting the Civil War Monuments, but it was time for us to get some work done so we went back into town and put a load in at a laundromat. The lady who owned it came out and told us that they were closing in 30 minutes, so we wouldn't be able to dry our clothes. We were not thrilled, but needed to put some miles behind us so off we went packing a load of wet clothes.

When we found a place to spend the night, we laied out all our clothes on the top of the truck to see if they would dry... they did not. So, we slept with out clothes quite damp.Sunset last night.