old st. louie on the mighty misterslippi
The streets were fairly deserted Saturday evening when we pulled into St. Louis- a strange but welcome sight for a weekend night on the riverfront.
St. Louis is one of our favorite “get-out-of-Kansas City” places to go: it’s close enough to hop in the car and drive there without too much ado (3 1/2 hours), but far enough to be very different than KC. And as Uncle Arby always said, different is good.
Zia made friends with a couple of the many horses that pull carriages around town. Don’t these 3 heads look great together?
The night life picked up a little as the evening wore on, but was still pleasantly quiet…
…but of course, the cops had to camp out at the bar just to be SURE things stayed under control!
The Gateway Arch! The Arch commemorates Thomas Jefferson’s goal of the exploration and settlement of that great unknown, the American West. Jefferson’s idea of “Westward Expansion” was mobilized by his commission of Lewis and Clark (and Seaman, the dog) to follow the Missouri River west from its mouth just north of St. Louis, (where it intersects with the Mississippi) to its source, the Pacific Ocean. This “Corps of Discovery” was to chart the geography, climate, plants and animals they found along the way. It took over 2 years, but the expedition finally returned to St. Louis with journals chock full of charts, maps, drawings, and discoveries previously unknown to the white man.
Thus St. Louis became known as the “Gateway to the West, and the Arch was built to proclaim it to the world.
The view from under the Arch!
Riverfront history is also rich with tall tales: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn went floating down the Mississippi along with their creator Sam Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain), who was a steamboat pilot on Ol’ Man River. Twain colored his tales richly with the inside knowledge of the river he ran for 4 1/2 years.
Well, I think that’s the end of my riverlore for now. More later on the city beyond the river!
Isn’t this a sweet view of the city? Old St. Louis is such a cool place at night.
