Day 4 - St. Charles, MO (Day 2)

We explored the St. Louis riverfront today.  It was an exciting, informative adventure!

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is a treasure run by the National Park Service.  It's a 90-acre park located along the banks of the Mississippi River, between the Eads Bridge and the Poplar Street Bridge, in St. Louis.  The Gateway Arch is its crown.   The Museum of Westward Expansion, movies about the construction of the arch and the Lewis & Clark journey, tours of the Old Courthouse, ranger led programs and riverboat tours provide the jewels of the experience.

At 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is the nation's tallest monument.  We walked across the tree-shaded park grounds, stood in awe of the Arch, and immediately decided we needed to take the journey to the top.

Journey to the Top ...
You ride to the top on a tram that carries passengers in capsules. Each capsule carries 5 passengers and is fully enclosed.  It's similar to a Ferris wheel car, in that you remain seated upright as the tram climbs and descends inside the Arch.  It takes 4½ minutes to go up and 3 minutes to go down.

See the dark spots in the middle?  They're windows.

Passengers are given car numbers
as they enter the tram area

Views from the top ...

We're up where the windows are

Eads Bridge (in foreground)

Busch Stadium - St. Louis Cardinals

Old Courthouse

Edward Jones Dome - St. Louis Rams

Poplar Street Bridge (I-55/I-64/I-70/US-40)

Next, we decided to get a different view of the river and riverfront by taking a ride on the Gateway Arch Riverboat.

Looking north - Eads Bridge

Gateway Arch from the Mississippi River

High water deposited drift wood
on top of this column

Union Electric plant
built in 1902, still operates

Mississippi River Bridge (for I-70)
(Due to complete in 2014)

Scrap metal gets loaded onto a barge

Pretty messy, huh?

Queen of the Mississippi approaches St. Louis

The arch is the prominent structure on the memorial's park grounds.  There's a lot to see below ground level, though.

Even the Visitor Center entrance
is below ground level

The museum is captivating (and free)

Circular exhibits show westward 
expansion over time

Exhibits were so realistic

We watched the "Monument to the Dream" documentary in the Visitor Center.  It showed key events filmed during construction of the Arch.  The views were breathtaking.  We saw no evidence that construction workers wore safety harnesses during the project. Thankfully, there were no deaths.  It was a phenomenal accomplishment!

How the Arch came to be

TomorrowWe head westward tomorrow.

Day 3 - St. Charles, MO

The weather continues to be kind.  Today was just like yesterday, but with the temperature reaching the mid-70s.

Giant City Campground
The campground is about 12 miles south of Carbondale.  It has 85 sites, restrooms, showers, a dump station and electricity at most sites.  We picked a great time for a peaceful stay ... there may have been 7 other campers.

It's time to leave

This was almost a private campground

We left the campground at around 11am.  Our 138 mile trip took us to St. Charles, MO (about 25 miles NW of St. Louis).

The route:  North on US-51 to Carbondale, west on IL-13 to Murphysboro, west on IL149 to IL-3, north on IL-3 to US-50, US-50 to I-255 (crossing the Mississippi River), to I-270 (around St. Louis), to MO-370, west on MO-370 to MO-94, south on MO-94 to St. Charles.

Along the way
This was a scenic route that took us along the Mississippi River part of the way.  We passed small hills, fields and fertile river lowlands.

I-255
Jefferson Barracks Bridge takes
us over the Mississippi River

The Missouri state line is mid-river

MO-370W takes us over the Missouri River

The wide Missouri River

Campground
We're camped at Sundermeier RV Park.  It's bit like being in a Wal-Mart parking lot (lots of cement, little landscaping).  But, the staff is helpful and the amenities are very nice.  We're staying two nights.

Site #81

Exploring St. Charles
The park managers suggested we visit the historic district of South St. Charles for dinner and offered some recommendations.

Dinner first ... we chose Mother-In-Law House (www.motherinlawhouse.com).  It's been in operation for 33 years and we could see why.  The dining experience was exceptional.  The owner personally visited with each guest and brought warm blueberry muffins to their table.  Carol had the special (chicken with brandy and pineapple) with rice and a salad.  Dick had liver and onions with a baked potato and a salad.  Dessert was highly recommended.  Dick had peach cobbler with ice cream; Carol had banana cream pie.  The Victorian dining room was beautifully decorated and would have been a wonderful experience in itself.  We ate on the patio and enjoyed every morsel. 

The owner

We ate on the patio

And met the owner

The festival ... we learned that the Festival of the Little Hills begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday.  It's held in the historic district and is the largest festival of the year (200,000 visitors).  They were starting set-up tonight in Frontier Park and along Main Street.

300 craft booths being set-up

Municipal Band plays in Frontier Park
(Between Riverside Drive and the Missouri River)

Scenes along Main Street ...

Tomorrow
We'll explore downtown St. Louis tomorrow.

Day 2 - Makanda, IL

Even though last night got down to 49°F, today was another beautiful day for travel ... sunny, broken clouds, 70°F with a light breeze.  We met both of our goals for today, and then some.

The beautiful day shows off on I-57S

First, we had breakfast at the KOA Kross Roads Cafe'.  It was tasty and fun.  Then we headed off in search of Pomona, IL and ended up camped in the Shawnee National Forest.

The 208 mile route was: I-70W to Effingham, IL, I-57S from Effingham to Marion, IL-13W from Marion to Carbondale, CR-12S from Carbondale to Giant City State Park near Makanda.

Observations
We were happy to enter Illinois (leave Indiana highways).  We traveled the full extent of I-70 in Indiana, saw lots of orange barrels, hit lots of potholes and crumbling road surfaces, passed lots of road construction sites ... and didn't see a single highway worker.

We're happy to be here

It seemed like we passed through a "we have the world's largest" area.  There were the world's largest wind-chime and the world's largest golf tee sights advertised in an area near Casey, IL.  We didn't stop.  This  huge cross appeared at Effingham.

Late in the day we passed through a small town in the hills called Alto Pass.  One of its main attractions seems to be a root beer saloon.  The saloon was closed as were the other businesses.

Log cabin in Alto Pass park

Alto Pass business district

Storm damaged Alto Pass home

Campground
We're camped in site #43 at Giant City Campground.  

About Pomona
We visited Amana Colonies on August 5, 2012 during our Midwest trip.  Carol bought a Michele Maring Miller print of the Pomona General Store.  We joked that we were thankful it wasn't Pomona, CA and decided to try to find it someday.  We did today!

The artist's view

Our view

Downtown Pomona consists of one intersection with 3 stop signs.  The general store is on the corner.  It's closed.  

Carol takes a peek inside

We saw a soda fountain, an old ice box and a Coke cooler inside.  We noticed gasoline sold for $0.669 per gallon the last time the pump was used.

We saw a sign for the Pomona Natural Bridge as we approached town.  It was a few miles away.  We were there.  So, we decided to take a look even though it didn't appear to attract many tourists.  Here's what we saw after traveling 3 miles into the forest on a single lane, gravel road.

Tomorrow
We're heading toward St. Louis.

Day 1 - Terre Haute, IN

We finished loading and left Columbus a little before noon.  The day was overcast and cool until just before we pulled out.  The sun broke through and stayed with us the rest of the day.  The temperature reached the mid-70s.

Our 249 mile route was really simple:  I-270S to I-70, I-70W to Terre Haute.  This was a good way to get started because it gave Carol some time to refresh her GPS and campground directory skills ... she's the navigator you see, Dick just follows her instructions (sometimes).

Yes, there is much to discover

Observations
The Indiana portion of I-70 is pretty rough.  There are sections that have been resurfaced. But, much of it is crumbling asphalt applied over concrete.  

Cross-wind gusts tossed us around a bit when we drove through Indianapolis.

Campground
We stayed at the Terre Haute KOA on October 6, 2010 during the return from our Northwest trip and liked it a lot.  We've stopped there for a do-over.

This KOA has lots of activities for kids
... and a restaurant

Site #39

The restaurant serves breakfast, dinner and
24 flavors of soft serve ice cream

Tomorrow
We have two goals for tomorrow.  Breakfast at the KOA restaurant and then to find Pomona, IL.  More on the Pomona story ... tomorrow.

Getting Started ... one more thing

Age catches up with all of us.  The Airstream is no exception.

The trailer has two deep-cycle, 12v batteries.  They're used to keep most of the accessories running when we're not connected to shore power.  Yesterday, the trailer system monitor detected that the batteries had almost no charge.  That wasn't a good sign since the batteries were fully charged last week and hadn't been used.

So, after 6 years of service, it was time for replacements.  People on the Airstream Forum say they get 3-4 years of use.  We really can't complain.

Thanks to Matt Brown (Carol's son-in-law), we were able to get new batteries today at a $100 savings.  They're installed, tested and we're ready to go ... honest.

Getting Started ... an update

This post is for reference.  It probably has little of interest for our followers.

Tires were on our list of to-dos before setting off on this trip.  The car tires were replaced on July 15th and new trailer tires were installed today.  We learned a few things as a result.

The car got Michelin LTX M/S P245/65R17 tires, which seems like trivia until we consider performance of the previous sets.  The original equipment (Dunlop) tires lasted 43,654 miles. The first replacements (Michelin) got us through a lot of hard towing and lasted 64,570 miles.  We probably could have put another 5,000 towing miles on the old tires, but the thought of risking a problem or replacing them during the trip wasn't appealing.

The trailer got Commodore ST215/75R14 tires.  The original (Goodyear Marathon) tires lasted 20,932 miles.  We replaced them on June 7, 2010 in Tucson when tread wear exposed a steel belt.  The replacements (API Gladiator) lasted 21,938 miles ... tread wear was significant and the sidewalls had some cracks.

OK, so what?  Well, we learned what to expect.

We took good care of the Michelin tires.  They performed as advertised and much better than the original set.

We thought we took pretty good care of the trailer tires.  There was no sidewall damage due to curbs.  The tires were kept clean and covered during the winter months.  Still, both sets had to be replaced after 3 years and 21,000 miles.  Everything we've read about trailer tires was confirmed.  Tire skewing during backing is hard on treads and sidewalls.  Sun exposure takes a toll on sidewalls and tire dressing speeds the process.

The trailer gets "new shoes" at NTB

Enough on tires.  We leave a week from today.  We're "chomping at the bit".