Gateway Arch National Park - and Other Adventures in St. Louis, Missouri (National Parks Trip #2)

This post represents another installment in the series detailing the second of our three cross country National Parks camping trips with travel trailer in tow.  At the time of this trip in 2010, our son, Ryan, was 16 and our daughter, Kyra, was 11.

With the fun and games of Branson, Missouri, behind us, our family headed northeast toward St. Louis, with a visit to the impressive Gateway Arch next up on our itinerary.  You all know that we prefer camping in State or National Parks over private campgrounds, enjoying the solitude and the scenery that only our public lands can provide.  Well, our best State Park option near St. Louis was the Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park in Wildwood, but it was about a 30 mile drive into the city.  This Park looked lovely, received good reviews and is currently enjoying an 8.5 rating on RVParkReviews.com (link HERE).  But we had booked tickets for an early morning tour at the Gateway Arch and factoring in the time we’d need for breakfast and driving in to the city made that particular Park a doable but less than perfect option.  So, we had to decide - should we bite the bullet and make the drive or look for a private campground?

Buffalo Shores Campground - Buffalo, Iowa (National Parks Trip #1)

This represents another installment in the series detailing the first of our three cross country National Parks camping trips.

At the time of our trip, our son was thirteen and our daughter was eight.  Our first day out, we had overnighted at the home of our friends Peg and Bill in Ohio before continuing westward through Indiana, Illinois and on into Iowa.  We crossed the mighty Mississippi as we left Illinois and entered Iowa, thinking nothing of the bridge beneath our wheels - until that evening when we arrived at the Buffalo Shores Campground, a lovely little campground in the small town of Buffalo, Iowa.