(She’s hard to see, but that is Paula’s head at the bottom of the featured picture.)
Last night we experienced a new form of severe weather: a derecho! A derecho is a widespread, long-lived straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms. (source: Wikipedia) We had driven thru some thunderstorms yesterday that cleared by evening, although we knew more storms were predicted for the night. About eight o’clock were snug in our hotel room in Evansville watching Star Trek (of course) and suddenly the wind started howling, crescendoing up to a pitch like screaming, tearing metal, and it started hailing like gangbusters. It lasted about 15 minutes (“Tommy, get away from the window!”) and then blew thru, subsiding to normal rain and wind, with occasional thunder and lightning.
This morning there were torn-up small trees and large twisted branches and debris everywhere! The weather news let us know that we had experienced a derecho. We were lucky! Tommy adds that the paint on the car wasn’t even damaged. Lol
We got up early as we planned to split the day’s driving in two. We got to St. Louis by 10:30a.m., parked by Anheuser-Busch stadium and walked to the Gateway Arch. It was magnificent as glimpsed from the highway, but as we approached and it became larger in our field of view, it was truly stunning. It’s the highest monument in the United States, 660 feet tall, dwarfing the Statue of Liberty (305 feet from ground level to torch). We had read that you could climb inside the Arch by stairs, but apparently that’s no longer an option. You COULD climb into a claustrophobic little pill-capsule and be hoisted up and around the arch, but we eyed the life-sized capsule and watched people shoehorning themselves in there with their knees bumping and said NOPE!
Instead, we took the Riverboat cruise on the paddle ship Mark Twain. This was physically enjoyable as there was sun and light breeze. The Mississippi is certainly muddy, as they say, and had swift current. We learned about the devastating floods St. Louis has had, the last in 2019, and the berm built to prevent future flooding from reaching the city. We went under several bridges, ranging from antique to modern, and saw full barges being pushed by tugboats. The Arch was no less impressive viewed from the water. Finally, it was fun to watch our Captain steer the big vessel back into port flawlessly against the fast current. She told us she captains sailboats for half of the year and is used to tricky dockings.
After getting some lemonade, we hiked up the slope back to the car and drove to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. These were amazing. First of all, the gardens are huge: 79 acres surrounded by a stone wall on at least 2 sides. It was impossible to see it all, so we chose four areas to explore.
First were the rose gardens which smelled great, although we could see the blooms were feeling the heat. Then we entered the Climatron, a huge geodesic dome, filled with tropical and subtropical plants from all over the world. There were water features such as fountains and pools, but mercifully, it was air-conditioned. We didn’t feel the heat too badly outside, but it got to 101 degrees today.
We saw amazing blooms and weird foliage, and saw a curare vine and coffee plant, among many others. Next, we strolled through the Chinese Garden, complete with statues, pagoda, and footbridges over burbling water. Very shady and relaxing. We entered the Conservatory, a towering greenhouse-like structure, which held an assortment of plants each taken from different areas of the garden and presented together.
Driving to our final destination of Warrenton, Missouri, our map program routed us through smaller, more rural roads as there was a huge back-up on highway 64 due to an accident. There was farmland, cows, horses, and many fairly large homes.