We left Mark Twain behind this morning and set forth southwards along the Mississippi River Road along Twain’s beloved river. The “Great River Road” is a byway that runs the entire length of the river from Minneapolis in the north to New Orleans in the south but we only touched on a tiny section today running through Missouri and Illinois.
The Missouri section was lovely and green and at the overlooks the river looked more like the Amazon than a North American river.
However, the towns and farmhouses were pretty and we even stumbled on this gorgeous old derelict house that looked like the perfect movie set for a haunted house.
Not far down the road we crossed the river into Illinois and so collected our 33rd state! Only briefly though because we headed back into Missouri further along. Illinois had….wait for it…. more cornfields!! We felt compelled at this stage to Google the growing and harvesting of corn here in the USA. We learned that they are , by far, the biggest producers of corn in the world. No surprise to us after the last several days….
Crossing the Mississippi River…
into Illinois!
For a time we were following the Illinois River instead of the Mississippi, and when we needed to cross it we had to wait in a queue of cars for the bridge to open. There was a huge barge coming down the river and it took right of way, the rest of us had to wait.
At Grafton we reached the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and then followed the ‘Ol Miss all the way to St Louis. It’s a wide and magnificent river at this stage, but not as wide as we remembered it further south in Memphis in 2012.
Just before we crossed back over the river into Missouri we stopped at the Mississippi River Overlook which provides a great view across the river to St Louis, framed wthin the Gateway Arch. The Arch was completed in 1965 and is the world’s tallest arch, the tallest man-made monument it is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and has become THE symbol of St. Louis. Framed within the arch you can see the Old Court House building, which we visited later in the afternoon. It was just across the road from our hotel.
It was VERY hot by now, around 34 degrees ( the weather website said it “felt like” 39!) , but we had a bit of fun on the overlook as it had a webcam and we were trying to record ourselves waving at the camera. If it hand’t been 3am back home we’ve had called someone to wake up and look at us! I did manage to capture a picture of the screen though…
Next to the overlook was The Gateway Geyser , a huge fountain that shoots water to approximately 192 m. The Gateway Geyser is a counterpart to the equally tall Arch on the Missouri riverbank. It only erupts 3 times a day and by a fluke we arrived right at 12 midday when it went up!
Across the river it was a little to early to check in to the hotel so we visited a big mall and did some shopping in my other American “Happy Place”, Macy’s! ( Disneyland is my main “American Happy Place” 🙂 )
Finally we drove back downtown and checked into the hotel. It’s in a great location very close to the arch and we’ll be going down there to do the Ride to the Top tomorrow. In the meantime we walked over to the Old Court House and took a look at its grand rotunda and it’s restored court rooms. American really DO love their flags!
Later in the evening we popped outside to take a few nighttime sots of the Arch and the Court House, it was still around 28 degrees outside!
