Ross and Beverley: Rock Island

Rock Island is a city in and the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The original Rock Island, from which the city name is derived, is the largest island on the Mississippi River. It is now called Arsenal Island. Located on the Mississippi River, it is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring Moline, East Moline, and the Iowa cities of Davenport and Bettendorf.
Downtown Rock Island is very pretty with lots of activity on a weekends.

We had lunch at a Thai Restaurant and Beverley ordered the spicy mussels. She expected the traditional mussels steaming hot however, they were served cold. It was delicious.

Earlier in the day we took a 30 minute drive to the village of Le Claire, Iowa. Le Claire is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Le Claire is part of the Quad Cities Metropolitan Area, which include the area of Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline, Illinois.
The city takes its name from Antoine LeClaire, a Métis trader of First Nations-French Canadian descent, who originally owned the land.
Le Claire is known as the site of the reality television series American Pickers, aired by the History Channel and home to Antique Archeology, an antiques store featured on the show.

It is the birthplace of William Frederick Cody aka Buffalo Bill Cody.

The museum has many interesting things to see.

The River Pilot’s Pier area of the Buffalo Bill Museum in LeClaire, Iowa, has a display featuring Philip Suiter. Philip was the first riverboat pilot in LeClaire and was trained by French-Indian voyagers to navigate the dangerous rapids down river from LeClaire. He arrived in LeClaire in 1836 with his family, after living in Ohio and Illinois, and proceeded to establish his home, business and the first school in Scott County. He was considered the best in his field.

This ship is the Lone Star and was one of longest running wooden steamboats in the USA, 1890 -1967. It was in operation for 77 years. It was last operating steam stern-wheel towboat on the Mississippi River retired after not meeting Coast guard regulations.

The village itself is very pretty with many arty and interesting foodie places to visit.

Such as the Wild River Winery. After sampling several of the local wines which were all good we purchased 4 bottles.

Then onto the Le Clair Olive Oil store.

Here you are invited to sample the oils in a similar fashion as a wine tasting.

Not only is there olive oil there are mustards, jams and so much more. Once again we left the store with a selection of goodies.

This tree caught our attention as the flowers looked like buffalo fur.

As we were filling up our care with fuel we saw this chap who had ridden his John Deer ride-on to fill it up with gas. After the 3 years in Canada and having used such a machine we were amazed to see someone drive one to a garage to refuel. The gentleman said he just live 3 houses away from the service station , so why not.