We had picked site number 1 which was in Campground #2 at Thousand Hill State Park. What a beautiful shady site.
Our first tourist stop was a visit to the Kirksville Osteopathic museum. What we could see there was limited as the main part had closed for renovation. In 1892, A.T. Still established this first as the Osteopathic School in the world. The section that was open featured many photos of early medical classes and what struck me was how many women graduates there were, even in the late 1800s. Osteopathy looks at the whole body and the whole of the environment. Outside the museum was a very picturesque herb garden.
I had never been to Kirksville, the home of the former Northeast Missouri State University, now called Truman University. I am a graduate of Southeast Missouri State so we also had to go see this campus. It is very stately and also very flat unlike SEMO. The red brick was similar throughout with a very federalist architectural look. It was shady and there were lots of little private nooks for students to study. Even though, it was summer, there were a few scattered around. The visitor Center was welcoming and had nice timeline display of Truman's history. This was the first Normal School, which was a teacher' s college, founded in Missouri. The year was 1867 and Southeast Missouri State followed a similar path, founded in 1873.
Thousand Hills is one of the few state parks that has dining on site and what a wonderful experience. We were able to get reservations for the outside patio, overlooking the lake. We enjoyed watching kayakers and water fowl while we dined. We both ordered catfish and it was done very well. The restaurant had a nice wine selection and the whole experience was very affordable.
We did our grocery shopping at a Hy-Vee. What a great store! Kirksville is about the same size as Hannibal but clearly much more prosperous. It had great prices, a great selection and a nice attached liquor/wine store.
The Adair County History museum was crammed full of interesting memorabilia. Kirksville was established in 1841. The county was named after John Adair who had served in the Revolutionary War and later became the governor of Kentucky before migrating to Missouri. Agriculture has always been a big part of the economy and was front and center in the museum with implements and other photographs of the area's farming history. Kirksville seemed to be a town of affluence with many nice homes and boats. There was also a lot of areas that looked well worn. There seem to be wealth and poverty mixed in close proximity.
We went to a highly rated Mexican restaurant called La Fuente on Baltimore Street. It was pretty good and very affordable with $2 margaritas. But the patio was so rundown. I would have thought that enough customers wanted to eat outside as a result of the pandemic that they could have cleaned it up.
We had arrived in the middle of the week and by the weekend, the park was full. We had noticed when we plugged in that there were a lot of ants on the electric pedestal. Friday night, I kept hearing the AC shut off and knew that our surge protector, the Power Watchdog, was doing its job. The next morning, we began to investigate and with help from the host, we cleaned up the ants. After that, the power seemed to be more stable but it did happen one other time. That made us very leery of going too far and leaving our dogs in the RV. We also do have a temperature/humidity monitor so at least we would know if the AC was out for very long.
We are still unsure if the problem was the ants or the full campground. Regardless, we were really happy that our surge protector did its job. This model is made by Hughes and I would highly recommend it. We heard about it on the RV Miles Podcast. The Emergency Power Off model constantly monitors the park power. If harmful conditions are detected, the unit will automatically cut power to the coach. An even better feature is the replaceable surge unit. If a massive surge were to damage your surge protector, you don’t need to throw it out. We carry the replacement part with us and it is definitely providing us peace of mind!
Truman University Campus