Not far from Weston Bend State Park is another place where Lewis and Clark visited.  It's called Lewis & Clark State Park and it's not far from St. Joseph.  This is a very small park and a very nice quiet place to camp, watch birds and swim for a little while in the lake.

The lake here is called an oxbow lake.  That means that the Missouri River once made a big curve here, but later changed its course.  Now the water that was once in the river is now in the lake that has a big curve in it. 

I spent some time walking around on the prairie and learned that park rangers are trying to restore the park like it was when Lewis and Clark were here.  Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals about all of the pretty birds they saw here, and still today, it's a good place to see heron and geese and egrets and all sorts of other birds.

It's a very pretty park with nice picnic shelters for me and my bear friends to get together and have a picnic.

Missouri has a lot of state parks, and I've been on the road quite a bit lately visiting them. Missouri Govenor Jay Nixon wants families to understand that Missouri's state parks and historic sites are some of the best places to spend a week-long or weekend vacation. Most state parks have free admission, meaning they provide a great opportunity for families to spend time together without spending a lot of money. Some of the bigger parks even have lodges, where people can spend the night.

I recently visited Weston Bend State Park in Platte County. That's way up in the northwest part of Missouri. The park is named Weston Bend after a big bend in the Missouri River. There is a also a creek in the park called Bear Creek, and being a little teddy bear, I wanted to play in it. The person I was traveling with didn't want me to get muddy, though.

A long time ago, Lewis and Clark camped here while making their famous trip up the Missouri River as they explored the new land that had been made part of the United States after the Louisiana Purhase. They were also seeking out an all-water passage to the Pacific Ocean, and while they did not find a route that goes all the way to the ocean, they did discover a lot of animals, including bears right here in what is now Missouri. I didn't see any other bears on my trip, but I did see a black snake, which I knew would not hurt me.

There is also a big old barn located in the park. Farmers in this part of Missouri grow tobacco, and before the land here was a state park, it was a farm that produced tobacco. The barn is where the tobacco leaves were dried before being shipped away.

While in Branson last week, I had the chance to visit the Titanic Museum, which is located on Country Highway 76, better known as the Strip.

The museum's exterior looks like the original ship, and at 100 feet tall, it is half the size of the original. It is anchored in a pool of water, which adds to the illusion that it is a real ship. Inside, you can walk up the beautiful replica of the original ship's Grand Staircase and touch the frozen surface of an "iceberg." One of the really unique things about the museum is that visitors—who are called passengers—are assigned the identity of a real passenger. Each person's ticket—or boarding pass—tells whether that person survived or died when the ship sank. I'm sure there were at least a couple of teddy bears on board, because there were a lot of kids on the ship.

While touring the ship, you can see how long you can hold your hand in ice water. Imagine how cold it was for the people who jumped into water that cold when the ship went down. I tried to put my paw in the water, but it just got soggy.

There are 400 artifacts in 20 different galleries in the museum. Mary Kellogg, one of the owners of the museum, said that the artifacts were either donated by survivors or purchased at auction over the years.

If you have questions, you may be get answers from the captain or crew members walking throughout the ship.

I've been traveling out of the country quite a bit lately, so it was nice to spend a couple of days in Branson. While there, I met two great guys whose families immigrated to the United States. That means they came from other countries. Both men came to Branson because of its wholesome, family atmosphere.

Yakov Smirnoff is hilarious. He is originally from Russia, and he tells funny stories about coming to America and beginning a new life here. Not all of his stories are funny, though, as he compares the wonderful freedoms we have here to the hard life his family had when he was a boy in Russia. He reminds you that America is the greatest country in the world, which is why so many people like him have chosen to live here.

Dino Kartsonakis is a fantastic pianist whom you have probably seen on television. His family came to America from Greece, but he has lived here his entire life. When he was five, his mother discovered that he had a great ear for music, and she enrolled him in piano classes. When he was older, he trained a Julliard, a prominent school for the fine arts, and at conservatories in France and Germany. Since 1997, he has played for audiences in Branson, which is also known as the "live music capital of the world."

Did you know that the ancient Egyptians believed the Nile River was one of the rivers in heaven?

I tagged along with Diana and her husband, Bruce, who serves as her personal photographer, for four days and three nights cruising the Nile. It's easy to see why the ancient Egyptians thought as they did. The Nile is absolutely beautiful.

Egypt, also known as "the land of miracles" is home to one resort community called Sharm el-Sheikh, a winter destination that is extremely popular with Europeans and Russians, in particular, who long to escape their extremely long, cold winters.

Despite nearly 300 passenger boats moving from Aswan to Luxor at any given time, the Nile is calm. The wide and smooth river is lined with fields of sugar cane and colorful Nubian villages. Fishermen work their nets and felucca boats (traditional wooden sailing boats) fan their sails under perfect blue skies. There is no chance of rain for about 50 weeks each year.

You can read more about our trip in Diana's article on the Pocket Express Blog.

I hate camels. They're not nearly as lovable as bears. In fact, there's nothing cuddly about them. They're mean. They spit. They smell.

But camels have been hauling humans and their gear for a long, long time, so they have to be tolerated. That means you have to learn to ride them, which is not the easiest thing to do, because they wobble.

It's too bad they didn't take walking lessons from horses. Horses are a lot easier to ride because as a horse lifts its left front hoof, it also lifts its right back hoof. This keeps it stable, although it doesn't always stop the bouncing.

Camels, on the other hand, lift both front and back hooves on the same side as they walk, which causes them to sway. Combine that with the fact that a rider is sitting almost 7.5 feet off the ground, it's enough to make you sick.

No matter how awkward, though, it's the only way to travel in Egypt. We had the chance to visit the ancient Egyptian pyramids, which are massive tombs in which Egyptian pharaohs (or kings) were buried. Ancient Egyptians believed that when a pharaoh died he became king of the dead. They also believed that when the pharaoh died, part of his spirit remained with his body. For this reason, the Egyptians mummified the pharaoh's body, so that the spirit could perform its duties as king of the dead.

In addition to the king's mummified body, the pyramid also contained everything the king might need in his afterlife—clay vessels, stone and gold, furniture, food and other items.

The kings were not always buried in pyramids, though. Before the pyramids, tombs (or burial places) were carved into bedrock and topped with flat roofs and mounds of dirt. The pyramid shape of later tombs is thought to symbolize the rays of the sun coming down to the earth.

Bruce Meyer took some great photos of our trip. If you happen to run into Diana, ask her about her visit to the Egyptian police station.

Just as it is in Missouri, agriculture is a top industry in Spain. The country is covered in small, picturesque communities that could have looked just the same more than 100 years ago.

The town of Vitoria in the Rioja region of Spain is one such village—an agricultural community that produces some of the area's best wine from surrounding vineyards. Just as it does in Missouri's towns of Hermann and Ste. Genevieve, wineries are a vital part of the economy.

The town hosts a wonderful jazz festival (a musical art form which originated in the early 20th century among the African American communities of the southern U.S.) An old cathedral in the town was the inspiration for author Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth.

I also had a chance to visit a butcher shop, where people buy their meat. I'm glad people don't eat bears.

Did you know that these gigantic animals are not really buffalos? The technical name is "American Bison," however when the first settlers and mountain men happened upon the great mammals, they didn't know what they were and for lack of a correct name they called them "buffalo." Since then, the name has stuck and today many people only refer to the mammals as buffalos.

This past week I had the chance to visit Sayersbrook Bison Ranch near Potosi, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis. Skip and Connie Sayers run a really cool ranch where people can have meetings, tour the 1,700-plus acres of forest and plains or feed the huge herd of bison. In fact, some people even bring their Jeeps or Hummers to have fun driving through the woods. Mr. Skip says there are trails for four-wheel drive vehicles to follow, but I sure didn't see a trail. I think Mr. Skip just likes taking off through the woods.

The Sayers decided to raise bison after reading the Plains Indians lived on bison meat and never had cancer, heart disease or strokes, despite living to be eighty to ninety years old. In fact, scientists speculated that had they had dental care, they would have lived to be one-hundred and thirty-five. The flavorful red bison meat is 97 percent fat free and contains 40 percent more protein than beef.

I recently had a chance to visit the National WWI Museum in Kansas City. Did you know it is the first national monument and museum outside Washington, D.C.? The museum is located inside the Liberty Memorial, a 217-foot-tall obelisk on General John Pershing Boulevard. Fittingly, the street is named for the Missouri native who was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWI.

One of the most unique parts of the museum is a glass bridge that crosses a field of 9,000 red poppies. Why poppies? Few things survived the bombs and mortars that destroyed the fields of Flanders in northern France. However, the churning of the earth by those bombs brought forth long-buried poppy seeds, which bloomed there as never before. Some say they bloomed red because of the vast amounts of blood shed in Flanders field. Since 1922, the VFW has sold red poppies as a fundraiser on Veterans Day, a symbol of the sacrifices of so many. The poem "In Flanders Fields," written in battle by Canadian doctor Col. John McCrae was the inspiration behind this movement.

The poppies are the most colorful part of the exhibit as the rest of the museum's black, gray and brown hues reflect the mud of trench warfare, a common practice of each side fighting from within huge man-made trenches.

Ever heard of the Mother Road? The Main Street of America? Those are just two nicknames for U.S. Highway 66—or Route 66—the first highway to stretch all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles. And the idea to create a transcontinental highway was born right here in Springfield, Missouri.

You probably best recognize it as the famous highway running through Radiator Springs in the Disney/Pixar movie, Cars. The highway breathed life into the western United States, just as the railroads had done nearly a hundred years earlier. The highway has played a role in quite a few movies, but, in my opinion, Cars, is one of the best, as the movie really centers around the American dream.

The highway was originally named Route 60, and some signs and highway maps were even made using that name. However, before the road was commissioned, it was discovered that 60 had already been taken. The number 66 was available, and creators liked the sound of it.

The famous highway came to life in the 1920s, but the early glory did not last long. In 1929, the stock market crashed, bringing on the Great Depression. In The Grapes of Wrath, a book written by author John Steinbeck, an Oklahoma family takes to Route 66 headed to California, searching for a way to survive the Great Depression. It was Steinbeck who first called the Route 66 "The Mother Road, the road of flight."

Just as the country started to prosper again, World War II hit, and Route 66 became a highway of soldiers and military convoys. The real heyday of Route 66, though, was the post-war era of the late 1940s and '50s, when the road also became known as the Will Rogers Highway. Families were growing quickly, more people had the money to buy cars and take vacations, and the road had certainly improved.

There was even a song written about Route 66—Bobby Troup's 1946 classic. The idea for the song came as Troup was headed from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles to pursue a songwriting career. As they headed out of St. Louis, his wife came up with the phrase, "get your kicks on Route 66." Troup immediately started working on the song and finished it a few days after arriving in L.A. Obviously, Route 60 would not have had the same ring to it.

The entire Summer 2001 issue of Show-Me Missouri was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the famous highway. Writer Kris Lokemoen drove the entire length of the highway as it runs through Missouri from St. Louis to Joplin. In the Summer 2009 issue of Show-Me Missouri, writer Jim Winnerman discovers why Europeans consider Route 66 to be the best example of American history.

Most people believe that Harry S. Truman is the only Missourian to have served as President of the United States. Technically, that's not right, though.

One other Missourian served as President—David Rice Atchison, the man who was President for one day.

As president pro tem (the second-highest ranking member of the Senate), this man from Plattsburg, Missouri rose to the highest office in the country when President James Polk's term ended at noon on Sunday, March 4, 1849. Because his successor, Zachary Taylor, refused to be innaugurated on a Sunday, Atchison was acting president until noon on Monday, when Taylor took the oath of office.

It's easy to understand why people recognize President Truman, but not President Atchison. While President Truman led the U.S. through the end of World War II and through the Korean War, Atchison's term was a little less exciting as he took a long Sunday afternoon nap before going to bed that night.

So if you were President for one day, what would you do?

Since Missouri History is a required course in all of Missouri's fourth grade classrooms, I thought it would be fitting to take a tour of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City. Did you know that before Missouri became a state, government was conducted in several locations in St. Louis? When the first state legislature had to choose a location for the Capitol building, they determined that it should be in the center of the state, and they selected a wilderness location near the confluence of the Missouri and Osage Rivers. Confluence means where the two rivers join. Other cities wanted the Capitol to be located within their boundaries, and there were numerous attempts to have it relocated. The City of Jefferson won out in a vote of the people, though, and the Captiol today overlooks the Missouri River from a beautiful blufftop location.

While the massive building was being constructed, St. Charles (just outside St. Louis) served as the state capital. In fact, you can even tour the First Capitol in St. Charles today.