Friday being my day off we did a day trip to Weston, MO.
Weston, Queen of the Platte Purchase, became a significant mid-nineteenth century Missouri River port community, the second largest port on the river, second only to St. Louis. In 1850 over 300 steamboats a year docked at the Port of Weston. The population soared to 5,000, surpassing both Kansas City and St. Joseph. But after major floods, fires, and the Civil War the bustling town declined to about 1,000. When you see all that goes on here, you may be surprised to learn that over a century later, Weston still has fewer than 2,000 residents.
Barn they dry the tobacco in.
Though not as important as hemp in the early days, through the years tobacco has become a very important cash crop for Weston and Platte County. The annual tobacco yield in Platte County prior to 1861 was 25 million pounds and Weston developed the only tobacco market west of the Mississippi until 2001. It's annual auction from November to January brought in millions of dollars. Today about 2.8 million pounds of tobacco is grown annually in Platte County, however it is now contracted to tobacco companies, or shipped to markets in the South.
In 1856 Ben and his brother, David, founded the Holladay Distillery on the outskirts of Weston. They built above a limestone spring and used grain grown on area farms to make mash from which they distilled whiskey. Now known as McCormick Distillery, the property remained in the Holladay family until 1894.
Main street is walk back in time with it’s shops and restaurants .
If you look at the black and white picture you can see the old hotel that's in the left picture.
This tree was growing outside the church.
Not sure why she wanted to take my picture here..
They had a real nice museum.
Also just outside of town is
Nice park over looking the Missouri River.
Has a nice camp ground it wasn't real full and lots of room for a 40 ft rv.
On the way home from Weston Friday we saw this county park and thought we would take the dogs for a walk Saturday morning and check it out.
We got up early Saturday before it got to hot…80 at 6am and went to explore.
The trails were all paved and grass well trimmed.There were seven bridges like these and the creek running below
The dogs were hot and tired by the end. They got in the creek to cool off and get a drink.
There was no one there when we got there but by the time we were leaving a few joggers and a family riding bikes showed up.
We thought it would be nice if we had some bikes to ride in places like this and we could use them when we start full timing.
So off to Walmart we went to buy us to new bikes.
Its been a long long long long time since this old man has been on a bike. Honey don’t forget to bring the first aid kit.
That's it for this week we’ll see what next week will bring.
ONE DAY CLOSER TO THE DREAM
