St Louis

 

Have you visited St. Louis?  Have you gone up in the Arch? Don't people always ask if you went up in the arch when you tell them you were in St. Louis?  How can you go to St. Louis and not go up inside the arch?  If you are spontaneous, in other words, one who doesn't plan to the nth degree, you may not be able to get a chance to go up in the arch if you are just visiting St. Louis. Reservations are now required. We went up a few years ago when visiting St. Louis but I think we just showed up and went up.  No planning ahead.  Spontaneity is our thing.  But with that, you sometimes miss out. Our timing was not in synch with the park service schedule for going up this time.  And we were tight on time so we couldn't make reservations later. Not a problem, really, though I wished our daughter and son-in-law could have gone up in the arch.

The arch is magnificent, true, and quite the feat of engineering, but I love trains and this visit we focused on the old Union Station which is now an amazing Hilton Hotel with restaurants, a pool, the St. Louis Aquarium, a ferris wheel, light shows and fountains in a pool... It's beautiful and makes for great pictures.  It's a place we would not have stayed at if not for being with our kids.  Too pricey.  Bougie.  But I'm glad we had a chance to stay.  I love trains and this place is awesome. 

The old building is magnificent. And this picture doesn't capture 
the enormity of it.

Union Station in St. Louis was built in the late 1800's.  It opened in 1894 and for a time was the largest and busiest in the world and the train shed had the largest roof in the world. It was expanded in 1903 to prepare for the 1904 World's Fair. It saw it's busiest time in the 1940's. The last Amtrak train pulled out in 1978 and now is located in a non-descript building a block or so away.  But the old St. Louis Union Station is one of the largest of historic facilities in the US that has been successfully reengineered for a different purpose. It's been an Omni, Hyatt and Marriott and Doubletree before becoming a Hilton. Let's hope it continues to be something.

Looking up over the main entrance.

Inside the Grand Hall which now has dining and a long bar along the wall.

The light show on the ceiling of the grand hall changes on a schedule.  
I love how art is changing with technology and merging with entertainment. 
I've always loved functional art.

A large model train and village set occupies a large space on one side of the gift shop.

The train shed with the ferris wheel just outside, the pool reflecting
light in the foreground and Landry's Seafood restaurant in the center.

The train shed holds many things to include this small cafe with
ice cream, candy, burgers, and yes, booze.

Me lounging, literally, in the hallway outside the bar/restaurant
while we waited to be seated for breakfast.   

We did a nice long walk around the National Park area paths bordering the arch and walked quite a bit of the downtown area.  It was a pretty hot and muggy day.  We were soaked with sweat but enjoying ourselves.  

This is the Lewis and Clark sculpture along the Mississippi near the arch. 
Included in the picture is Seaman, their Newfie that made the entire trip, was stolen by Indians 
for a bit then reaquired by Lewis and Clark not long afterwards, involving some killing, if I recall.  

This is maybe my favorite picture of the arch.  

We walked back through downtown and had a drink at a pizza place that had games galore at each of the tables.  It was midafternoon so the place was quiet except for a couple tables.  We sat at the bar and conversed with the employees and a couple patrons.  If we go back we will sample their pizza.

I love the murals on this building.  From a distance you can't tell what is a mural and what is not.  I even thought the windows were all painted on.  Bring it on people.  Bring on the murals.  Give us more art. 

And back to the train station.

Later before we took our daughter and son-in-law to the airport we visited the Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, Illinois. It is 150 feet high and you can ride the elevator up and see the rivers and one of the largest refinery in the US.  It is near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the two longest rivers in North America. The confluence of the Illinois River is close, as well.  We'd love to boat the Illinois to/from Chicago. 

It was a nice trip.  I say all these things about St. Louis but the trip really was to see my mother in Iowa at the nursing home where she lives with Lewy Body Dementia and strokes and just plane old, frail bones. She had just had a fall and had broken a clavicle.  It actually happened after we'd set the dates to go see her.  So the timing worked out.  She had surgery on her clavicle a couple of days after we left.  We drove to St. Louis to be there to pick up our daughter and son-in-law who were flying in from Baltimore.  They didn't have enough time for the drive and St. Louis offered lots of flights in case of cancellations or weather events. The time spent driving with them from St. Louis to Iowa and back was a nice to to just chat and catch up.  We also visited my sister-s grave and my father and grandparents' graves after we saw my mom.  Visiting the graves is part of Dave's and my pattern when we go to Iowa to see my mom.  We leave roses at each of the graves and I say their names.  I miss my dad.  I miss my sister, too, but am going through a phase of really missing my dad.  And appreciating him.  I had good parents.  I have a good mom.  I'm glad she is doing ok.  She isn't angry, she isn't in pain, she isn't lonely.  That is a lot better than many older people get the last few years of their lives.  And let's not forget and be ungrateful for all the years we were lucky enough to have our loved ones.  

Lewes Canal & Rehobeth Bay with River Dancer

We are getting a little better at putting River Dance in and out of the water.  We watch others detaching and attaching their boats, small and larger, one person jobs and two or more.  We fumble a bit but so far no major glitches.  

We ordered charts of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay and tributaries.  Until it arrives we are relying carefully on our Garmin, depth finder and Google info.  And watching what other boaters are doing.  Rehobeth Bay is less than 2 feet in much of it and from a distance we watched people out of their boats apparently walking on water.  Dogs too.  Pretty cool.  

Initially we were going to run the Broadkill River from Lewes to Milton and back.  But since it was a quiet Monday we figured it might be a good time to run the Lewes Canal south to Rehobeth Bay to see what's what.  We were surprised at how few places there actually were to dock to eat from the canal.  That's probably a good thing for the environment.  The business part of Lewes along the canal was just not as large as I'd thought, somehow.  I don't know what made me imagine one thing or another.  We actually floated through stretches of the canal with no apparent development.  Other than the canal.  

Just heading out, south, from the boat dock.

Going under the bridge in Lewes. 

Then it got quiet and we started to see more wildlife. We saw blue herons and a green heron and lots of other shore birds I don't know yet. Lots of tiny crabs running for shelter as we passed along the mud banks.

We went south in Rehobeth Bay/Indian River to where we could see the Indian River Inlet bridge near the Delaware Seashore State Park & Indian River Marina.

We weren't sure whether we could slip through the canal into Assawoman Bay to Ocean City bayside.  Apparently it was last dredged in 2006, I think, and at one time was considered part of the intercostal, but not anymore.  Even with our shallow draft we weren't sure we should try it.  We are new to the area, new to our boat, and are just being careful.  

On our way back out of Rehobeth Bay we passed back through the relatively narrow jetties into the Lewes Canal again.  

A lone kayaker was in the canal.

It was a successful boat trip and we learned a lot.  We began to examine River Dancer's options for us and I began studying how to make screens for the back door and front hatch.  I tried laying in the forward berth for a while.  I haven't yet used the porta-potti that we had ready in the forward berth under the cushions.  I want to look forward to using the boat a lot and don't want to get dehydrated so I must explore this option at some point as well.  

Our next boat adventure will probably be back to Lewes to put in at their public boat dock and go north and west into the Broadkill River to Milton and back.