St. Louis, Missouri - Gateway to the West

We left Ron & Shayna's house mid afternoon on Monday (Oct 27th) after getting much needed haircuts! (John was starting to look like a mad scientist...)  We didn't make it very far, stopping at Clarksville, TN for the night.  It was a pretty campground; not too full and had some nice colours.  We had to put our Air Conditioning on!!  It was 28 deg C!!  Yay!!!!!
The cats liked Clarksville.  Tawny spent a lot of time in the woods, watching the squirrels.

We pulled out early Tuesday morning (Oct 28th) and stopped for a kitty rest at Marion, IL (the 2nd time we've been in Illinois this trip!!)  It was rainy and cool all day (from A/C to heater in one day; you'd think we were in Calgary!) We drove through St. Louis, MO at rush hour... not good planning, but John did great and we got set up before dark so we could get the cats out again.  Sammy immediately went on top of one of the rental cabins, and Tawny quenched her thirst in a puddle.

Wed morning (Oct 29th) we took the cats out then headed into St. Louis.  We parked at the outskirts and took the Metro (light rail train) into downtown.  We had lunch at a mexican taqueria (lovely fish tacos!) and then we toured the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis - which was breath-taking.  There is no paint; all the murals are done with mosaics - 83,000 sq.ft. of 4.1 million mosaic tiles.  Wow.  Really something.

Those are mosaics adorning the ceiling!

More mosaics, and a Tiffany stained glass window.

We got back on the Metro and headed further east to the Mississippi River, which is the dividing point between Illinois and Missouri.  On the banks of the Mississippi stands an Arch - it's called the "Gateway Arch" because St. Louis is the "Gateway to the West".  Lewis and Clark began their expedition from here - finding a land route to the west.

The Arch, as seen from the Metro Station

The Archway was opened in 1967 and is 630 ft (192 m) high.  We rode up to the top in egg-shaped "pods" and had amazing views from the top.

The government bldgs and surrounding parks.

The "Eads" Bridge (closest) was a very optimistic endeavour
built by a fellow who had never designed a bridge before.
The arch shadow is falling across the Mississippi.

St. Louis skyline

Fall colours in the park surrounding the Arch.

We toured the Museum of Western Expansion after we finished in the Arch.  It featured great exhibits on Lewis & Clark's expedition, as well as good information on the Native American Indian conflicts with the early settlers.  As always, we were "ushered" out at closing time before we were finished... (we read everything) but not before we saw a number of "animatronics" done by the Disney people, depicting native indian and caucasian figures of the day.  A really cool museum.
We got home after dark, so another day when the kitties did not get their evening walk, but we set up Sammy's fabric cube and tunnel, and he raced around the trailer for 2 hours before finally settling down. Tawny tends to just stay out of his way when he's that cranked up... he had fun anyway.
Tomorrow we head out, bound for Kansas.