The journey from St. Louis to Cedar Rapids started at Total Wine where I found a few more bottles of "local" bourbon to bring home. These bottles will later travel with me to Delaware where I will have a tasting with my friends Bud and Sue. So, there is MIssissippi to Missouir whiskey in this collect. Personally, I'm rooting for Old Soul since i feel like I am one, but we shall see!
I had no planned stops, and I passed signs for Mexico, Louisiana, and Athens. Sp many choices!! The sign for Athens had a little round sign underneath "Civil War Battle Site," so you know I turned the car around and went off the beaten path. Not only did the road have signs warning of horse and buggies, but it was like a narrow patchwork quilt of different surfaces -- black top, cement, dirt....
What was left of Athens was a few homes and some street signs marking where there had once been a thriving population of 500 people. A mill town with access to a railroad, Athens thrived in the mid to late 1800s despite the Civil War. No, what killed this town was the rail road was rerouted and by 1900, the town was almost deserted. Thankfully, a few buildings have been preserved and there is an adjoining campground and park, which I would love to come back to.
I never realize Missouri was really involved with the Civil War until a few years ago my mom loaned me a book called Enemy Women. She was particularly taken with it because of a horse in the book, which was an interesting side line, but for me, learning that because Missouri was split on its loyalties, it was a very dangerous place. Roving bands representing either side would raid towns and homes, even of those who claimed neutrally. As I mentioned at Vicksburg, there were markers for union and confederates from Missouri. Technically a slave state when it entered the union in 1820, it also had many citizens who opposed slavery.
The battle at Athens was a great example of that split personality. The Missouri Home Guard (Union) defended the town from the Missouri State Guard (Confederate), but the fight had people in Athens taking to either side and in some cases, family members found them selves on opposing sides. This mirrors the history of the state the never seceded but a group of secessions set up a separate Confederate government that was recognized by the Confederacy as their 12th state. Below is a photo of where a canon ball went through a home but did not injure anyone.
As states have become increasingly polarized in the last 20 years, I've wondered if some might break off, but then there is federal funding. But since 2016 groups of individuals have come to take very opposite views, and using history in Missouri as an example, could we come day be a nation in that kind of turmoil? It also shows that fundamentally human nature does not seem to change that much. We have the same problems, just different iterations, which is why I find history so fascinating and informative.
From Athens, I soldiered on to Iowa City, where I had an air BnB booked so my daughter Amy could come down from Cedar Rapids and we could go clothes shopping for her. The host called herself a Constitutionalist; I did not tell here that I could agree with that except the Constitutions was written by white men for white men. I need the amendments!! She had had some not so great experiences while living in the south for only six months. She said on the first day of chemistry, they taught her son how to make moonshine!
After a disappointing meal at a Korean restaurant, Amy and I shopped at Von Maur which is a nice department store in this area. Since she broke up with her boyfriend last year, she has turned to working out. She now has thighs like a speed skater and needed some new pants, and some business casual items for her legal internship in NYC this spring. In an unusual fit of something, I suggested we get ice cream after shopping. I'm not much of an ice cream person even in the summer, but it just seemed like a good idea. Maybe because Amy loves ice cream. We found a cute local chain, Heyn's, with unusual flavors.
We made it an early night because we were both driving home the next morning.
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