Meet Me in St. Louis

From our RV park, there was a great bike trail into historic St Charles.  It runs along the last bit of the Missouri River (before it joins the Mississippi).  So we went for a morning ride in for breakast, which was really more like lunch by the time we sat down to eat.  

The town is all restored colonial era, with cobblestone streets and tons of little shops and restaurants. After lunch the kids played in beautiful stone lined stream under a bridge (AKA a drainage culvert) while Kambria and I window shopped. One the way back we ran into a man at the Lewis & Clark Boathouse who claimed to be the mastermind behind the longest historical re-inactment of all time with his boat trek across the entire Lewis & Clark trail a few years ago in his completely accurate replica boat (that he was working on).  He was a character to be sure.

We headed into St. Louis to the Gateway Arch.  And after enduring an hour of the kid's arguing whether or not you could go up in the arch all the way to the top, we did indeed make such a journey.  It was pretty amazing.  

The kids opted to watch a documentary film on the building of the arch rather than an IMAX film about Lewis and Clark. "We've been to a thousand museums about those guys!"  I had no idea that the entire arch is made out of stainless steel on the outside - I always thought it looked like granite or something.  We entertained ourselves around town being hooligans on the river front and then went to dinner at the number one rated Italian restaurant in St. Louis (on trip advisor) - the name of which escapes me, but which was really tasty.  I think that the kids are starting to understand some of the pieces of the US history puzzle.  Dane Drake and Avalon were having a discussion about when the things that happened along time ago really happened, and Avi said "When I was three, those were the olden days for me."