St. Louis, Missouri

October 9, 2024

Even though the calendar tells us it's October, it has not felt like fall yet. Aside from a little fall color a few weeks ago in Devil's Lake Wisconsin, we have not seen any hints of the season yet. But we are not complaining too much, as we have enjoyed quite a bit of unseasonably warm weather in the 70s and 80s over the last several weeks.

Crossing the Mississippi

Our next stop was at Babler Memorial State Park near St. Louis, Missouri. It proved to be pleasant stay conveniently located to things we wanted to see, and the weather was brilliantly sunny every day. The only thing that was a bit annoying were the stink bugs.

Our campsite

For those of you who have a strong aversion to the brown marmorated stink bug that invades so many homes this time of year, our camper was a horror show. We thought we had seen a lot of them at our last stop, and we felt a bit guilty upon discovering that several had hitched rides with us to the St. Louis area. Were we going to single-handedly be responsible for spreading an invasive species to a pristine region of the country blissfully ignorant of these creatures? The answer turned out to be "ha ha, not a chance". We discovered that not only are there plenty of them here already, but there are MORE of them. We are not particularly bothered by the bugs per se, but it gets a little ridiculous to have them crawling around EVERYWHERE (inside and outside). Plus, they aren't particularly good at obstacle collision avoidance. If you are sitting outside minding your own business, it is likely that your face will be directly in their flight paths, and you will get pummeled repeatedly. It is strongly advised to keep one's mouth closed.

These pictures really don't give the full effect, but there were stink bugs everywhere!

We much preferred the visit of this solitary walkingstick. (It might be nightmarish to have hordes of these guys walking about, though!)

While Julie was trying to gently remove it from our deck, it decided to just climb up her arm!

The day after we arrived was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day, and so we left the stink bugs at home to go for a bike ride on a portion of the 200+ mile Katy Trail.

The Katy Trail

The Daniel Boone Judgment Tree Memorial

In June of 1800, Daniel was appointed to the position of Spanish Commandant of the Femme Osage District. At that time, his district was a region running indefinitely west and north along the north side of the Missouri River. In this role, he performed as the civil administrator and military commander of the district, as well as having the dual role of Spanish Syndic (Judge) of civil disputes. He would hold court under the large elm "Boone Judgment Tree" that is the subject of this park. (source: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=176670

Nice artwork on some old grain silos

Klondike Park with unique white sand

Doesn't look like Missouri, does it?

Up on a bluff in Klondike Park over the Missouri River

Slightly intimidating vultures

And we thought it was just kids that would be the ones to throw stuff down on the people below! 😉

Very nice looking outhouse

Our final stop on the Katy Trail before turning around

Our starting point was a little bit east of Weldon Springs. We didn't get very far!

Augusta was a cute little town with some B&B's and a couple of art galleries

Don't see many of these merry-go-rounds anymore!

Pretty impressive millipede on the trail

This dock on the Missouri River can accommodate quite the range of water levels

Almost back to the parking lot

Being so close to St. Louis, we pretty much felt obligated to go see the Arch. So that's what we did on Tuesday, another brilliantly sunny day.

One of the first glimpses

Getting closer

Of course, Julie had to photograph the Arch from several different vantage points. (Fortunately for you, she deleted most of them!)

We found it odd that aside from a lone casino, the opposite side of the river in Illinois was not really developed. The best view of the Arch seemed to be from the noisy Cargill plant next to the casino.

We visited the museum under the Arch

Nice diorama of the original St. Louis waterfront

The designer of the Arch was the same guy who designed the "tulip chair"

We didn't go up to the top of the Arch, but this model shows the little tram capsules that take you up. We had previously watched an interesting video about it here.

On the way back from the Arch, we stopped at the historic town of St. Charles, the first capital of Missouri. When we lived in St. Charles, Illinois, we often came across this Missouri alter ego whenever we did internet searches for things pertaining to our home town. It was time to see it in person!

The town was all dressed up for fall

The main drag (Main Street) is paved in cobblestone

Grandma's Cookies were "voted best cookies", so we had to try some. They were pretty good, but a bit too dry and sweet for our tastes

Random quaint old buildings

Came across this interesting art installation. Alas, the typewriter was all jammed up and didn't work anymore.

Nothing inside the "book"

More old buildings 🙂

Random chili pepper mariachi (or whatever) band

Rick's Corner (because it's always something!)

The nights are getting colder, so we have broken out our two little electric thermostatically-controlled ceramic heaters to use at night and, most importantly, to heat up the bathroom for shower time. Since we had an electric site this time, we were able to use them willy-nilly.

Unfortunately, one of the heaters was starting to get a faint burning smell during use which didn't seem good. The next time Julie plugged it in, there was a bit of a spark/snap sound, and then it didn't work anymore. It was time to take it apart!

One of our trusty electric heaters about to undergo surgery. Incidentally, this heater is probably about 30-40 years old!

I didn't get a "before" picture, but the circled connector was where the problem was. That big red wire had corroded and broken completely free of the connector.

Turns out, one of the wires inside had corroded where it had a connector crimped onto the wire. Once the connection got loose enough, it started to heat up during use (probably what we were smelling) and finally just completely broke off. Luckily it didn't short anything out or break anything important!

After stripping back the wire, cleaning it, re-crimping, soldering, and covering it with a piece of heat shrink, I clipped the connector back on, and the heater was good as new🙂.

When I was originally packing tools prior to setting out on our multi-year adventure, I didn't really expect the soldering iron to get as much use as it actually has gotten. Glad it didn't get voted off the island!

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