<<< Thursday, 3 - Friday, 4 July 1997 (Independence Day)
Worried that campgrounds would be full over the holiday
weekend we decided to pre-book and stay for two nights near
St. Louis,
Missouri whose car tag motto is the "Show-Me-State", we are still trying to
find out what is on the show! The city is located on the divide of the huge
Mississippi
and
Missouri rivers, but based on
our experience, for the most part, they are not very attractive rivers when they
go through towns.
| Downtown St. Louis has numerous
towering office buildings but these are dominated by the
Gateway Arch located on the Mississippi
waterfront in the centre of downtown. The arch is a beautiful slender inverted catenary-shaped structure 635 feet high and commemorates what was the gateway to the West for thousands of 19th-century pioneers. |
 |
Designed by Eero Saarinen, the memorial is 75 feet
higher than the Washington Monument and was constructed
from 886 tons of stainless steel during 1963-65. What surprised us was that we were able to ride inside the tower to the top and then get out of the transit capsule and view the panorama. |
| The Arch complex also houses an Imax theatre where we watched a breathtaking film about the exploration of the west by Lewis and Clark, who were charged with the fruitless task of finding a waterway from the midwest to the Pacific ocean. |  |
Being Independence Day the park was crowded with families
enjoying the fairground activities in the waterside park, but true to the
American way of life, by far the majority of stalls were selling food, much of
which looked delicious but probably unhealthy. About midday an air show
sponsored by McDonnell Douglas took place which included our first live viewing
of a Stealth fighter Like their guns, Americans love their fireworks and as this
is being written, we can hear explosions all over the place. In the past, we had
seen many so-called fireworks supermarkets, so fittingly today and out of
interest we stopped at one and were amazed at the huge range and sizes as well
as the very low prices.
During the afternoon we visited St. Charles
which is a well-preserved old town lining the shore of the Missouri
river and is the original capital of Missouri. The area was
owned by France but when sold in 1804 the town's name was changed from
San Carlos. Like St. Louis,
the town was full of families enjoying their vacation by exploring the cobbled
main street lined with numerous gift shops.
Sunday, 6 - Tuesday, 8 July 1997
As we needed to get a few things fixed on the RV it was time to move on
towards Chicago by way of Elkhart,
IN which claims to be the RV centre of the world. On the way, we stopped for one
night at IL which sits on a wide attractive river, but the local KOA campground
was scruffy with some very poorly maintained RVs that seemed to be permanently
camped. For the most part, the several hundreds of miles of the countryside from
St. Louis to the Indiana border are fairly flat rich farmland,
which seems to be farmed by the Amish. The countryside is very green and
reminiscent of that back home. As we arrived at the Granger campground near
Elkhart a storm was brewing, but when George found out that the
campground had a modem-friendly lounge for adults, he was off with notebook
computer in hand leaving Valerie to watch the storm.
This morning we heard via the main TV news that British airways are likely to
strike on Wednesday the 9th, Let's hope it is quickly resolved as we are flying
by BA to the UK on the 10th of July. Our travelogue will continue when we return
on the 30th of July.
We had an enjoyable but hectic stay in England seeing a lot
of relatives and friends but there was still not time to see everybody on our
list and in what seemed to be no time we were on our way back to the States.
Wednesday, 30 - Thursday, 31 July 1997
We had an uneventful journey to Heathrow airport and arrived at Chicago
on time at 1.00 pm; by about 4.00 pm we were having a cup of tea in the RV at
Marengo. Other than being a little dusty
both the car and RV were as we left them.
Jet lag has not been much of a problem on this occasion since it was only a
six-hour time difference and more convenient travelling times. Spent most of
Thursday and Friday getting re-organised, stocking the food cupboards etc.,
writing numerous letters and preparing to move on Saturday.
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