Wednesday, September 7, 2016

DAY #5.....St. Louis, MO to Quincy, Illinois

Can I just say......Day #4 and we are tired!!  We are sure packing a LOT into each of our days.  We don't realize it until we get to our hotel at night and then we feel it.

We went to the Cahokia Indian Mounds this morning before heading back to St. Louis.  They were just about 10 minutes from our hotel.  Perfect timing and right on the way.

We didn't have time to see as many of the mounds as we wanted, so we chose the 'premiere' mound to focus on.  This was the MONKS mound.  It doesn't really look like it here, but it was quite the hike to the top.  This foto was taken on the '2nd tier' of the climb up.

From on top you could see downtown St. Louis, including the Arch, off in the distance.

And the hike down....155 steps in all.

When we left the Mounds, we headed back to the downtown area of St. Louis so we could have our boat ride.  We parked in the same parking deck we did the day before.  It worked well for us and was only a 3-block walk to the Arch and Boat Docks.  We walked past this restored church on the way.  It was started in 1720!  It is the Oldest Catholic Cathedral west of the Mississippi.

We arrived at the dock a few minutes early and we were glad we did.  There were a lot of people in line already!

We rode on the Tom Sawyer boat.

I had gotten a little text from Melanie Lindsay Janus asking if we were in St. Louis.  (She was one of my Young Women a gazillion years ago.)  "YES we were in St. Louis",  I told her.  She said she was going to go on the boat ride with us because she wanted to see us.  And, low and behold, there she came.  She and her husband and children live about 20 minutes away.  That worked our perfect!!

Why, YES indeed, we had to take a selfie by the arch as well!!!

And Melanie offered to take a foto of Wayne and me at one of the 'points' at the base of the Arch!  How fun to catch up with her!!!  What a sweetheart!  

We headed on up to Quincy, Illinois where we would stay the night.  We had completely forgotten that there was a temple in St. Louis!  As we were driving on Highway 64 (I think), all of a sudden I said "there is an Angel Moroni and a Temple"!  We exited off and made a little stop!!

What a beautiful temple and a great setting right along the highway....very prominent sight!

Then, it was on up the road to Quincy.....and the rains started just as we got close to the Mississippi River to cross back over into Illinois.

The rain made for a pretty river shot!

We are glad to be in our hotel at a decent time tonight.  Because we are pooped!!  Ready for a few hours of relaxing and propping our feet up!!  Life is good.....