More St. Louis Highlights

Well, here we are starting week #3 of a planned one week visit. Peggy's brother, Howard, has had some health issues, so they decided to stay a while longer and help. Peggy's other brother, Charlie, and his wife, Mary Ann, were passing through St. Louis on their way to a reunion with some of Mary Ann's college friends, and stayed over in St. Louis for a night. First time in nine years they have all three been together, so they really enjoyed their visit. They went to this really neat Italian restaurant for dinner - Charlie Gitto's. I never get to go to those places with them!

Mary Ann, Charlie, Howard, Peggy

As usual when in St. Louis, Peggy can't stop taking pictures of the Arch. I must admit, it is kinda an awesome sight. Especially at night when it's lighted.

View from the RV park.
We have a great view of the Arch and the city skyline from our RV park. The park is actually across the Mississippi River in Illinois. It is part of a riverboat casino and hotel complex.

Casino Queen RV Park

John is getting really good at getting around town. However, he's always asking me which route to take. But do you think I ever get to go along? No, I have to stay in the coach and guard it while they are out sampling all the good food in town.

This is how I think you should go.

These maps never, ever fold up the way they came!

As I told you before, the folks around here bleed "Red Bird" red. They voted in a new stadium a couple of years ago, and it will be home to the Cardinals next season. As this is the last year for the old Busch Stadium, there are all kinds of nostalgic happenings. A new commerative pin every few days. Peggy bought one for her brother that has the dates and a picture of the stadium. They are also selling game balls from the last season. Have one of those order for Howard also -- yeah, he has red feathers sprouting on him also. The city had a contest for what to name the new stadium, and would you believe, Busch Stadium took first place.


New (in foreground) and old Busch Stadiums

Having fun in St. Louis

Great news! Our new windshield arrived on Monday - two days earlier than promised - and was installed on Tuesday. Yeah, no more having to look through the spider web cracks. You know that was right in front of my favorite sleeping and look out spot.

Getting the new windshield installed.
We are enjoying our stay in St. Louis, and you just gotta love this town .... people here bleed "Red Bird red". It's been kinda fun with Boston in town earlier this week - they have been replaying the World Series - the Cards faired much better this time, 2 outta 3. This weekend the Yanks are in town and the Cards beat them tonight. They even have Red Bird logos for their cells phone. AND, they also have Cardinal songs and highlights for ring tones! The other logo you see as much as the Red Bird, is the Busch logo, and just try and find a pub where they don't have the Busch beers on tap! And of course, the Cards play their games in Busch Stadium.........where else!

The weather has been hot and humid, and we've enjoyed great light shows the past several nights -- accompanined by loud claps of thunder and pouring rain, along with some hail. I keep trying to hide, but there's no place to go except John's lap.

Vacaville to St. Louis

Quack, quack.........yes, we feel a bit like ducks. We've had rain almost every day as we've made our way across the country.

After a wonderful time with family at Pam's graduation, we left Vacaville on Friday morning and headed out to get ahead of the holiday week-end traffic. Our first stop was in Winnemucca, NV, where we expected to spend a couple of quiet days before heading across country. Wrong - Winnemucca was hosting the annual Run-A-Mucca Bike Rally. Hunderds of bikes are not quiet!

On Sunday we decided to move on, ending up in West Wendover, NV - a small town on the Nevada - Utah border. On our way, we experienced a few spinkles. After getting into the park and getting settled, the wind started to howl. At one point there was so much dust blowing, we could barely see the coach parked in front of us. After the dust storm, we got rain. Dust + water, you got it..........mud on the coach! The wind didn't let up, and the coach rocked and rolled most of the night, with the slide out awnings making lots of noise. It was really hard for me to sleep - I just kept pacing from the bed to the dash, to the window, and walking over the humans......why should they sleep when I couldn't!

On Monday we had rain all the way across Utah and into Wyoming. Since I'm not crazy about rain, I spent the entire trip under my blanket on the bed. See picture below from the RV park in Lyman, Wy that was basically electric and sewer in an old cow pasture.

Tuesday we stopped in Cheyenne, Wy, at the Terry Bison Ranch. A real working bison ranch! See the story and picture posted previously. We didn't travel very far on Wednesday, we stopped in Sidney, NE - world headquarters for Cabela's (Jigger's favorite store) about 11 am. The day was sunny with puffy clouds, and the Wyoming wind followed us. That afternoon, we had thunderstorms and rain with marble size hail. Got the full brunt of that and I did like it one bit, it felt like I was in a tin can and someone was beating on it! Peggy just put on her headphones and kept watching her soap!

Our destination on Thursday was Minden, Nebrasaka, and the Pioneer Village. They book themselves as Nebraska's biggest attraction. It is quite something, and a true slice of Americana. They have everything from a real conestoga wagon to some of the first cars, one of the original Wright Brothers planes, a real sod house, Wild Bill Hickocks saddle that he used when he rode the Pony Express route, etc. etc. That evening, we had a severe thunder storm with lots of rain and hail. Didn't get up to look at size, but weather reports said quarter size. It wasn't too bad as we were under trees which broke the hit. (See previous post on the fun adventure we had on the way to Minden.)

We left Minden under gray skies and about a hour out we started getting rain and it followed us all the way to KC. We spent Friday night in a beautiful park just outside Kansas City - Basswood RV Resort.

And now, here we are in St. Louis, and not a minute too soon if you ask me! Since we arrived this afternoon, the weather stations have been issuing severe weather watches - thunder storms, tornados, etc. for where we just came from! Thank goodness my humans didn't decide to dally another day in the Nebraska/Kansas area.

We have a lovely spot right on the Mississippi River, with a view of the Arch and the St. Louis skyline out our front window (what there is left of it!). If any of you travelers have occassion to be in St. Louis, the place to stay is the Casino Queen RV Park, just across the river in East St. Louis.

Alligator Attack

On our way to Minden, NE, we were attacked by an alligator. Scared the bejesus out of Peggy as it hit right in front of her. I know, I had to ask....flying alligator in Nebraska? (For those of you who are not RVers, an alligator is a tire tread. The semis throw them off quite often, and you will see them laying in the road.) Don't know it it was from the semi in front of us or if he hit one already lying in the road. We had a small crack from a rock hit last fall, and had planned to have the windshield replaced when we got to Oregon. Unfortunately, we can't ride around with this so a new windshield is being shipped to St. Louis, and will be installed sometime next week.


John trying out his windshield repair techniques!