Day 8: Maquoketa Caves IA to Moline IL (and back): Caving and Mississippi River Adventure

With an early start to the day, we beat the crowds to explore Maqouketa Caves State Park’s 13 caves. We army crawled and checked out all the nooks and crannies. We were filthy but it was a great adventure! Mama also accidentally made us bushwhack through a patch of stinging nettle. That was something we will not soon forget. Ouch!!

After lunch we drove to Illinois for a river cruise on the Mississippi River. We took an old fashioned river boat and enjoyed the breeze on the water in this 32 degree heat (feels like 37 degrees)! This boat was huge! It has a capacity of 350 people per deck and four decks!

Back in Iowa we headed to the world’s largest truck stop for a much needed snack to get us through the last leg of this jam packed day.