Welcome to Kentucky - and Illinois - and Kentucky - and . . .

We had a good night's sleep in the parking lot at the Kentucky Whitehaven Welcome Center. We have to say that the women that give information to travelers here did a great job. While we had planned to spend just one day in this area, we now are planning to stay three because they gave us so many good ideas.

We started out in downtown Paducah, at the Wall-to-Wall exhibit. It uses a flood wall along the Ohio River as a canvas for a long line of murals.

The mural project was started in 1996, and they all were painted under the supervision of Robert Dafford. With the detail and quality of work, each panel looks like it could be a painting hanging in a museum. Each has a bronze plaque explaining its significance to the area. This one is of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. Who knew that after his expedition to the west coast he settled down in Paducah, Kentucky?

These murals are ten feet high, so the people are life size. Mark was blending in with the firemen in this mural.

Churches are significant in the history of Paducah, so there is a beautifully-painted mural that Denisa liked.

Paducah is situated right on the Ohio River, so the barge traffic is an important part of their economy. Since we watched the barges so long yesterday, it was interesting to see this mural that shows "the office" of a captain pushing barges up the river.

This long line of murals is painted on the flood wall that was put in place to keep the town from flooding when the Ohio River goes over its banks. Now there are a few empty sections of the wall so that people and traffic can get to the river. But if it was flooding, they could slide giant metal gates into the slots in the wall to complete this water-tight barrier.

We walked down to the Port of Paducah to see that a river boat cruise was anchored. This boat has stops all along the eastern rivers, but today the passengers are enjoying an extended stay in Kentucky. They were waiting for a technician to fix a "technical difficulty" before they could continue their trip.

Not all of Paducah's history is painted on a wall. Paducah celebrates another form of transportation at this port. We are standing with this 1923 steam engine that once ran the rails at the busy depot in town. 

After a good amount of time in downtown Paducah, we headed across the Ohio River on another old metal bridge. Just like the last two, this one is narrow. It has a grooved metal road surface that makes it feel almost slippery. We were glad to be making this crossing in the pickup, rather than the motor home.

We were greeted on the other side by the "Welcome to Illinois" sign--even though Denisa didn't have great timing with getting the entire sign in the frame when we drove by.

We're making the trip to Illinois to visit the thriving town of Metropolis. Surely you recognize that city as the hometown of Superman, posing here in front of the court house with another super guy.

Fifty years ago, this town was given authority by D.C. Comics to become the adopted home of Superman. That same year, the state of Illinois made that official recognition as well. This is the only city named "Metropolis" in the United States, so it's good that Superman finally landed in his home town. Everything in downtown Metropolis is about Superman. They have bus parking for tour groups, and pay phone booths on every street just in case Clark Kent needs to transform into a super hero to save the day.

There's even a Superman museum on Main Street, painted the appropriate colors.

The Metropolis Super Museum has a nice gift shop with the best selection of comic books, toys, and kryptonite that any fan could ever hope to purchase.

Everything in downtown is copied in the red, yellow, and blue colors of Superman--including the Big Boy restaurant's statue that is Super Big Boy here. Mark is trying to stick out his stomach to pose with this pudgy boy lifting that heavy hamburger.

Not to be forgotten, Lois Lane can also be found in Metropolis, Illinois. In the television series, "The Adventures of Superman" Miss Lane was played by Noel Neill. She is now "The first lady of Metropolis" and has attended several Superman celebrations in Metropolis.

After leaving downtown, Superman seems to fade away and the town of Metropolis seems to change into a regular little town sitting on the Ohio River. The river-side park hosts a new lighthouse and we had to go find it because Denisa loves her lighthouses. This one was built not to honor Superman, but the survivors and fighters of cancer.

It's a good place to sit and watch the Ohio river traffic.

Metropolis is also home to Fort Massac State Park. Recreated buildings show how this fort from the 1800s once protected this river position before Superman came to town.

We walked the one-mile trail around the fort, and then we went for a bike ride. We didn't know it when we started, but this park has an extensive area to ride bikes among the trees of southern Illinois.

This trail came to an end in the forest, but we found another trail closer to the river that went on for many miles. Too bad we had put away our bikes by then, so we drove the pickup down the dirt road/bicycle trail to see more of the park. It was like taking a hike, but from the cool comfort of the pickup!

It was getting late, and we were getting tired. So we crossed yet another bridge over the Ohio River to bring us back once again to Paducah, Kentucky. We've been crossing over a lot of rivers and a lot of state lines lately. In fact, in a single day we went from Missouri to Illinois to Kentucky to Illinois to Kentucky. Stay tuned, because tomorrow we're crossing the river in a different way to get to Illinois and then Kentucky again!