Advertisement
Published: August 30th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Cape Girardeau where we stayed last night is the largest city between Memphis TN and St Louis Missouri along the River. It has evolved from a tiny trading post to a frontier settlement governed by a French-Canadian commandant to a thriving, culturally-rich community of 37,000 residents on the world’s only inland cape. A teaching university was founded in Cape Girardeau that is now Southeast Missouri State University.
We set out for the 110 mile trip to St Louis at 10:30am. This time we took the interstate which had been marked on the AAA map as a scenic route.
Jeeves (the GPS unit) is now mounted on the dash in a place of prominence and seems to have much less of an attitude now that he can see where he is going. (not serious here....just a little fun).
The weather again was sunny with temps 72 to 84. The air was clean and fresh and the humidity low.
We tried to find a radio station with some nice music but all we could find was country music and neither Frank nor I really like country. We settled for National Public Radio and listened to one of their regular shows done by a
Side view of Gateway Arch
Note the size of the people at the base of the arch couple of very funny comedians.
We reached St Louis by lunch time and had a sandwich at the Riverside Cafe on the waterfront by the Gateway Arch. St Louis has been known as the "Gateway to the West" because of the important role it played in the westward expansion of the United States. In 1965 the Gateway Arch was constructed as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; the arch has since become the iconic image of St. Louis.
We headed for the arch and had intended to take the elevator to the top. Unfortunately it was Saturday and consequently incredibly crowded. I had been to the top once before and although he had not, Frank decided that he would rather not wait. He was happy just to have seen the arch.
We headed out to the Great River Road to the sorghum and soy fields again and continued north. After 3 days of seeing sorghum and soy, it occurred to me that I don't really know what sorghum is used for so I decided to find out.
Sorghum is one of the five top cereal crops in the world, along with wheat, oats, corn, and barley. One type of
Scenic overlook
Taken from a viewing point just south of Hannibal Missouri sorghum, sweet sorghum, is grown for the manufacture of sorghum syrup. In the case of sweet sorghum, the stalks of the plant are harvested, rather than the seeds, and crushed like sugar cane or beets to produce sorghum syrup. After crushing, the syrup is cooked down to concentrate the natural sugars and packaged for sale. The grain of the Sorghum is favored by the gluten intolerant and is often cooked as a porridge to be eaten alongside other foods. The grain is fairly neutral in flavor, and sometimes slightly sweet. This makes it well adapted to a variety of dishes, because, like tofu, sorghum absorbs flavors well. It can also be eaten plain.
By 3:30pm we were in a small area of rolling hills and a farms with a few cattle. We stopped later at the town of Clarksville. It's revitalized downtown business district that boasts being the only downtown business district in the state of Missouri that still faces the Mississippi River features antique shops, specialty shops, and shops occupied by working artisans practicing their traditional skills. Every winter the town becomes one of the prime eagle watching sites in the Middle Mississippi Valley. We had a lovely half
hour sitting on the banks of the river. The town had built some very long steps that could be used as seats. Evidently people come to fish, or to just sit by the river. One of the locals told me that the river was really high and that there were normally 7 steps. Today there were only 4 visible.
Lousiana, the next town north was even more interesting and beautiful.
We reached the city of Hannibal where we stayed for the night. Hannibal is our last chance at one of the interstate interchanges where most of the hotels cluster. Tommorow we will head due west accross the width of Missouri and into Kansas. The forcasted temp for the morning is 48degrees. Yeah........cooler weather.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 20; qc: 99; dbt: 0.0573s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb