2014-10-24 River Cruise Aboard Tom Sawyer

Karen and I have never met a river cruise we didn't like. We jump at the chance to take one anywhere and anytime we can.

Today's cruise is on the Tom Sawyer out of St. Louis. It's only a one hour cruise but it gets us on the Mighty Mississippi River, our favorite.

As we're walking down to the dock, about 80 elementary children are headed in the same direction we are. This should be interesting.

The kids are eating lunch as we get on board. That leaves the upper deck for us to find a spot before the boat leaves.

The boat HAS a paddlewheel. It doesn't propel the boat nor does it turn. It's just there to complete the "look" of the boat.

The Tom Sawyer blows her whistle at noon and off we head upstream against the 3 MPH current of the river.

There just isn't a way to take a bad picture of the Gateway Arch from the river.

Along the river we saw one of the newest towboats sitting on the riverbank waiting for another towboat and barge to come downriver.

The new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge just opened this past February. It looks very similar to the Alton (Clark) Bridge a few miles upstream.

We turned around about 30 min into the trip. Here's a picture looking back at the Eads Bridge with the Metro train on the lower level.

Pretty ladies.

The dock is just below one of the Arch legs. Taking a picture of the arch on the way back to the car is a no brainer.

We drove around town taking pictures of buildings with great looking architecture. There weren't many.

In contrast, the old Union Station was great looking - inside and out.

Union Station was built in 1894 and by the time the World's Fair of 1904 opened in St. Louis there were 22 railroads using the station. The trains would back into the trainshed to load and unload passengers. The roof covering these trains was the largest roof span in the world.

Here you can almost get an idea of how wide the span is.

Eventually airplanes took away the business of the railroads and in 1978 the last train left the station. The building was converted in the early 1980s into a hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex.

The hotel has over 500 rooms.

The shopping area had MANY empty storefronts.

There were as many employees eating lunch in the food court as there were shoppers.

Our finale for the evening was a projection show on the ceiling inside the sitting area of the Grand Hall of the Hotel.

2014-09-20 Padelford Cruise Mississippi River

We just love riverboat cruising in the towns we visit and we are especially fond of the Missisppi River. From New Orleans to Natchez to St  Louis to La Crosse to St Paul. If we can find 'em, we cruise on 'em.

The sky was blue and the temperature was perfect for our 4 hour cruise from Harriet Island in St Paul, MN upriver a few miles past Lock and Dam #1 and then returning.

Padelford Boats, there are 3 of them now, have been working on the Mississippi River for 45 years now. The Jonathan Padelford has a paddlewheel on the stern and can carry up to 200 passengers. The Anson Northrup that we were on is a sidewheeler and can feed 225 people on their lunch cruises. They also have an unpowered party barge that can be towed or coupled with the Anson Northrup and it seats 175 for meals or 300 people with just drinks in their hands.

We were assigned a table before boarding and when we got on we dropped off our backpack and started exploring and staking out a spot in the sunshine with a view of the water from the second deck.

The vessel is two floors high for passengers with the 3rd floor reserved for the pilothouse. Lunch would be on the second floor where tables and silverware bundles were setup, while the first floor had tables only along the wall and would be for inside site-seers only.

As we were getting ready to leave, 10's of kayakers were paddling our way from the marina just upriver of our dock. It was a steady stream of them as we blasted our horn for a good 7 seconds to let them know we were on our way away from the dock.

Most of the information we got while underway was from a recording from some retired news anchor guy that the locals knew. While not as much fun as a Jungle Cruise captain from Disneyland, it was helpful to get to know the river nonetheless.

Along the way we saw pleasure boaters, speed boaters, wave runners, fishermen, birds, rock climbers, and beach walkers. 75% of the shoreline was undeveloped with trees or rocks down to the water.

Lunch was called about 20 minutes before we got to the Lock and Dam - poor timing to be sure. While we waited our turn to get in the buffet line I took some pictures of our approach. We ate hurriedly so we could get out and experience the locking procedure.

Our biggest thrill WAS going through Lock and Dam #1 - the same one we had visited and photographed earlier in the week. This perspective was from INSIDE the lock and let's hope you don't get claustrophobia as the gates close behind you, the water pours in and you are lifted 35' to the upper lake created by the dam.

A few miles upriver we turned around and returned through the lock with a bunch of kayakers and a small pleasure boat.

As we headed downriver to our dock everything looked different - until I went to the other side of the boat and then I recognized everything!

Arriving at the dock we saw their sternwheeler paddlewheel boat, Jonathan Padelford, out on the water. Next to riding these boats we like taking pictures of them.

We reluctently left the boat and headed out for a leisurely drive along the east River Road along the Mississippi River back to our RV in Minneapolis. Crossing the Wabasha Bridge Karen spied ANOTHER paddlewheel boat on the shore downriver - IT WAS THE AMERICAN QUEEN!

Evidently we hadn't done our research well enough and we had missed that she would actually be in town while we were here.

We found our way down to the waterfront and I dropped off Karen so she could take some pictures of the stern while I went and parked the truck a 1/4 mile down the road in the parking lot.

What a great find! In past years Karen and I shadow these boats from city to city taking pictures of them along the river. Seeing and photographing these paddlewheelers between cities was like finally finding a collectible you had been searching for.

We probably spent an hour there watching the passengers arrive via their special bus and listening to the jazz band play songs as they boarded. It was so exciting it almost made us want to forget the $6,000 a week it would take for us to cruise her and just GO! Someday, we will go, again. We love river cruising too much not to go.

Our talk on the way home was about dreaming how and when we could go cruising on a paddlewheel boat in the future and then these smiles will really be worthwhile.

2014-09-17 Minneapolis History - Flour Mills

For 50 years, from 1880 - 1930, Minneapolis was know as the "Flour Milling Capital of the World. Grain would come in from all over the Midwest to be turned into flour. Water from the Mississippi River was used to turn turbines, which turned all sorts of devices to separate, grind, and bag the flour.

We toured the Mill City Museum for a couple of hours. There were lots of hands on exhibits for the children to play with.

The Flour Tower elevator tour found us sitting in a Hollywood Tower of Terror-type elevator (minus the seat belts) and moving from floor to floor seeing various aspects of the flour making process.

Karen and I were talking about our experience afterwards and our only disappointment was not seeing the flour making process from A-Z.

After lunch at Chipolte, we took a long walk around and through Minnehaha Falls Park.

Immediately over the bluff toward the Mississippi River was Lock and Dam #1.

Just a single small pleasure boat was going through the lock while we were there.

Very little traffic now uses this lock or the 2 north of it - Upper and Lower St Anthony Falls Locks. The State is concerned with Asian Carp fish traveling up the Mississippi River and taking over the other rivers so they are closing the Upper St Anthony Lock later this year permanently. Very little river traffic will be affected and most feel that the native fish in the hundreds of streams upriver will be saved.

2014-09-16 Day Off in Minneapolis

Tuesday was officially a Day Off. Yep, that's what she called it.

We left the RV on a "short walk" to downtown Minneapolis. 4 miles and 75 minutes later we arrived at the Stone Arch Bridge. This "people bridge" is quite possibly one of the most beautiful bridges in the USA.

We walked across the bridge around lunch time and we were in awe of the number of walkers, speed walkers, joggers, runners, and bicyclists. This place must be one of the healthiest places in America (I just checked...they are #2). The views from the bridge are equally awesome.

Lunch was brought in the backpack and eaten in front of the bridge near the water. Simple and romantic.

As we finished eating and soaking up the sunshine, Karen heard that magical horn far away from the Lower St Anthony's Falls Lock and Dam that signaled that a barge was leaving the lock. Woohoo! It was coming our way and we would get to see it lock through the lock we were sitting next to.

Unfortunately, the only way to get ON the viewing platform was to be ON a dam tour (excuse my French). Fortunately for us there was a tour of the dam starting in just a few minutes. We got there in time and got to see the barge locking through.

...AND got to walk across to the other side of the lock to take even better pictures of the Awesome Bridge.

We wandered further along the waterfront and went into the Guthrie Theatre. It has this great architectural overhang that also has an overlook.

Dinner was on the horizon by now and we located some restaurants on the other side of the river with our iPhone. After a walk across a different bridge we sat down to some great burgers at Rachel's Cafe. 

Stomachs full, we put more muscle on our legs by continuing our walk on this side of the river. Eventually, we realized it might actually get dark before we made it back to the RV Park, so we headed for home.

Total mileage was around 9 miles. Total time out was about 10 hours. We did make it back to the RV for "ice cream at 9" and that constitutes a great end to our first "day off".