7/6/15

Today we started by driving by our old home in Bellville, IL.  I was 1 year old and Marta came home from the hospital she was born in to this house.  It was quite close to our hotel.  Mom gave us the address and GPS did the rest.

The neighborhood looked ok but not like the right place to stop and take pictures, so I snapped the above photo with my phone as we drove by.  I believe it is the left side we lived in.

Then we drove into St. Louis to see the Gateway Arch.  Our drive in was exciting for all of us, especially the girls as they competed to see who would see it first (Emily won).

 The Gateway Arch as we crossed the Mississippi

We were able to park in the cathedral parking lot which was the closest to the memorial.  Then we walked over to it and bought our tickets.

Entrance and tram ticket to go to the top

Then we had a chance to enjoy the outside of the arch.

Selfie by Marta Wetmore

Photo by Marta Wetmore

Once inside, we looked around the gift shop before our turn to take the tram to the top of the Arch.  We had to stand in line quite a while, waiting to get in the tram.

Photo by Marta Wetmore

As you can see, we were assigned car 4.

Loaded in our car.  Selfie by Marta Wetmore

Once at the top, we had to climb some stairs in the final curve to get to the center.

Photo by Marta Wetmore

We worked our way through the crowd to view out the windows.

Emily enjoys the view of the Mississippi River

Tug boat on the Mississippi River.  Photo by Marta Wetmore

Western view over the Old Courthouse and Busch Stadium

Emily makes her way to the very center

Emily poses in the very center, 630 feet above the ground.

After getting our full of the view, we road the tram for 3 minutes back to the ground level.  We went back to the gift shop to get the things we picked out earlier and a few snacks to tied us over until supper.  As we ate, we saw a ranger letting kids get their picture taken in this cut out of a real lady ranger.  The girls had to give it a try!

 Abigail

 Emily

And Emily tried on a ranger hat they had.

Then it was time to view the film on the making of the memorial.  I remember seeing this film years ago as a kid when I came here with my family.  Emily and Abigail watched with enthusiasm.  It was amazing to learn that no one died in the construction of something designed in the 1940's and built in the 1960's without anyone even knowing if the construction would be possible.

Relief on the wall outside the entrance to the theater.

After the film, we were ready to go and see the Old Courthouse.  When we walked out the door, we could see that it was pouring rain.  A number of people were standing in the covered area, waiting it out.  When it seemed to let up a little, we made the decision to make a run for it.  It turned out to be a bad decision.  Even though we had a relatively short distance to go, the rain picked up terrible and we were soaked through by the time we got to the car.

Abigail posing as drowned rat 1

Emily as drowned rat 2

Once the rain stopped, we got out of the car and walked over to the Old Courthouse.  The clouds made a beautiful backdrop for the Arch as we walked there.

Cathedral and Arch

 Old Courthouse

We stopped to look at the statue of Dred and Harriet Scott whose famous case was tried here and went down in the history books (read below).

We went inside and looked in the rotunda at the flags and bunting.

Emily and Abigail pose on the second floor.

One of the rangers at the Arch mentioned that there were multiple designs submitted for the monument.  He said there was a display of the top 5 designs at the Old Courthouse.  After we looked around the rotunda, I asked a ranger there where we could find the display.  He directed us to the library on the second floor.  When we got there, we found out that there was no display, but a researcher there gave us a private view of a book they had there of the top designs.  Interestinglyg enough, the winner's father had also submitted a design and was the original one they contacted to say he had won, not realizing it was his son's design they had chosen!  It was very interesting to see and we were very grateful she took the time to show it to us!  She said in 2017 when the monument is finished, they will have 3D models of the top 5 designs for people to see.

We enjoyed the view from the top of the Old Courthouse steps as we left to go back to our car.

 Look, I'm holding it up!  Photo by Marta Wetmore

 Marta and the girls

When we got to our car, we started the drive to do some shopping and eat supper.  On the way, we passed Busch Stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals play

We also passed the famous Budweiser sign that I remember passing as a kid.

Eventually, we went to P.F. Chang's for supper before our long drive to Independence, MO.

Posing at the fountain outside the restaurant

We drove through more fairly heavy rain to get there, but we found it ok and were ready to get some rest after all of our adventures!

7/5/15

Today we left on our trip of the Midwest which will take us through western Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.

We started out at Mammoth Cave in western Kentucky.  This is the longest cave in the world.  Portions of the surrounding country side have sink holes where the roof of the cave is just below the surface!  Today it is a National Park.

Posing at the entrance, Emily, Marta, and Abigail Wetmore.

 Liesel Grentz and Emily Wetmore

Our guide informed us that the cave was first discovered by native Americans around 4,000 years ago.  It was rediscovered by Europeans in 1797.  The cave played a role in the war of 1812, the Great Depression, and WWII.  It has been mined for saltpeter to make explosives.  In the 1930's, a mummified native American was found in the cave and according to carbon dating, he lived around 2,300 years ago.

The tour we took of the cave took us down into the entrance...

from Wikipedia

... into the rotunda...

from Wikipedia

... and up hundreds of stairs.

from Wikipedia

Not to mention crouching through low-ceilinged areas and squeezing through narrow crevices.  We descended and rose 300 feet during the two-hour tour.  Very fascinating!

Only two photos of mine that turned out inside the cave as flash photography is strictly verboten!

By the time we came out of the cave, we were very hungry, so we stopped for lunch at the restaurant in the park.  They served simple and tasty food which we enjoyed very much.

Good-bye, Mammoth Cave!

Then we pressed on towards St. Louis, stopping in Owensboro to get a few supplies and have supper.

Abigail and Emily enjoy a movie with their new headphones as we travel.

Now we are going to spend the night in Illinois, just outside of St. Louis.

Our room

Emily sleeps below the Arch

Abigail sleeps below a panorama of St. Louis

We walked 9,067 steps today.  It's a good thing!  We ate too much today!

May 23

Today was a travel day.  The original plan was to meet up with Uncle Wes and Jackie in High Wycombe for the evening before their wedding.  Even though Uncle Wes still didn't have his marriage visa, we still had our hotel booked in High Wycombe so we decided to go and be with the lonely bride.  We left at a decent hour in the morning and figured we would make it to High Wycombe at a decent hour.  What we didn't plan on was terrible traffic.  It took us more than twice as long to get there as we planned.

We had planned on stopping by Kettering on the way to see where Mom's maternal grandfather came from.

 It wasn't exactly on the way, but not too far out of the way.  We had been there once before about 24 or 25 years ago but didn't know where to find his home.  This time, I was able to turn on my laptop and open up a document I had saved to the hard drive showing the 1901 Kettering census.

 From there we could see that the Gibbs family lived at 217 Havelock street.  The handwriting was hard to read, but we were able to figure out the first several letters and that was enough for the GPS to figure out the rest!  So we put in the address and started the drive to his home.

He lived on a humble street of row houses.

 We found it easily and even found a convenient place to park.  From there we walked down to number 217.

 It was like all the other houses: quite small.

After looking around at the area we got back on the road to High Wycombe.  Once we finally arrived, we found our hotel, "The Abbey."

 From there we were able to look up Jackie's phone number and give her a call.  Then we made our way to her house where a friend of hers from South Sudan and her sister were already there.  They hadn't had supper yet so we were able to eat with them.

 While we were there, Uncle Wes called and we were able to talk to him back in the U.S.

After a nice evening,

we went back to our hotel for the night.