10/1/11 - George Washington Carver NM

We stopped to visit some of my relatives in Seneca, MO, and set up the RV on the parking lot of the nearby casino.  (Yeah, I know--not a lot of ambiance, but it only cost $3/night!) 

It was a quick drive to the George Washington Carver National Monument, where GWC was born.

There’s a short trail around the farm.  You walk past the site of the cabin where he was born.  Site being the critical word, I didn’t register that the low log wall had any significance.  I figured it out later; you can see it in this picture.  I was busy reading the monument plaque.

There’s a statue of Boy Carver perched on a rock.

The Carver homestead is still standing.  You can go inside, but there's not much there--couple of rockers.

George & I disagreed on what he’d invented—we learned at the "Discovery Center" it was peanuts, not cotton!  (We knew it was one of those crops they grow in the south.  If it had been tobacco, the monument would have been bigger.)

 

At Tuscagee Institute in Alabama, he did research on peanuts, coming up with more than 300 different things they can be used for!  (I knew two:  peanut butter sandwiches and peanut butter cookies...oh, yeah, and Phad Thai.  Who would have guessed ink or linoleum???)

He was a great humanitarian and went on educational speaking tours all over the country, speaking from this little wagon!  (And no, I don't know why it's called "Jesup Agricultural Wagon"--I must have skipped that sign.) 

By the way, this isn't a peanut plant--it's a sunflower along the trail we walked.  I wouldn't recognize a peanut plant unless Mr. Peanut himself pointed it out to me.  I think it's pretty though, don't you?

Link to more pictures.  Be sure to check out the butterfly. Geo Washington Carver NM pictures