This was a nice adventure with Rachel Lindley, except that on September 4th I had to get up at 3:00 AM so that I could be ready by 4:00 when Rachel was picking me up so that we could be at the airport and park for our 7:00 AM flight to St. Lewis, MO. We got to St. Lewis at 9:00 AM and took a taxi to the Hilton Ball Park. We got some good pictures out of our hotel window and from the roof. It was raining so we didn’t get to walk around much outside. The people at the hotel were very nice.
The ball park and arch as seen from our hotel.
On the 5th we went on an excursion that took us around St. Lewis, to tell the truth it wasn’t very interesting except the historical part about Lewis and Clark. We got to the American Queen ship at 4:00. Our cabin is huge and pretty. We did a bit of walking around the ship before our dinner.
The next day, Tuesday, we got off the ship at 12:30 in Hannibal, MO where we got on a hop on-hop off tour bus. I love these kinds of tours; they tell you the information you need then you can get off the bus and explore at your own speed. We visited Mark Twain’s, Tom Sawyer’s and Becky Thatcher’s homes. It was very interesting and lots of fun; it really stirred up my imagination.
Me in the Mark Twain Museum
The next day was a relaxing sea day, but I got a good picture of the river. On the 8th we docked in Bettendorf, Iowa. We visited the Isabel Bloom gallery; she made statues out of cement. It was interesting to see how creative she was with cement, but I wouldn’t buy one. We then went to the German Heritage center and gallery, it was fascinating.
September 9th was a very enjoyable, adventurous day. We had access to a Hop-On Hop-Off tourist bus in Dubuque Iowa. We visited the St. Lukes Methodist church; it was the first church built in Iowa. It had beautiful stained-glass windows that we could see from the outside, but we figured it would be even more beautiful from inside the church. Everywhere we looked there were a number of stairs that had to be climbed to get into the church. A guy from our boat got a woman that worked there to take us to the back of the church where there was an elevator that we were able to use to get into the church. It was breathtaking how beautiful those windows were from the inside, with the sun shining through them. They were made with Tiffany glass.
Our next stop was the Dubuque Museum of Art, it was interesting. The had some Grant Wood paintings but they didn’t have ‘The American Gothic’, which he is most famous for.
The most exciting place we visited was the Hotel Julian, Dubuque. It was built in 1839. It was a beautiful hotel, we got a map and were about to investigate the place on our own when this wonderful lady that worked there offered to take us around, she even pushed my wheelchair, which Rachel really appreciated. She told us the history of the building like this old “Julien Hotel” survived a fire, hosted famous guests such as Abraham Lincoln, “Buffalo Bill,” Cody and Mark Twain, but gained notoriety thanks to Al Capone, who would stay there when things got too hot in Chicago. She was such a blessing to us; she kept us enthralled with the stories about the place. God bless her.
Me in front of the room where Al Capone stayed at the Hotel Julian in Dubuque.
We docked in La Cross, Wisconsin on the 10th, boy was it cold and rainy there! I wore my coat and gloves even on the bus. Rachel and I got off at the Heritage Center, which was pretty interesting. It had things from their logging and mining history and stories about boats that crashed trying to bring supplies to them and floods that created problems before the levy was built. I got a picture of a painting on the wall there and another one of a story cloth that told about the people from Thailand that came there. That was significant to me because my daughter-in-law, Nok, is from Thailand.
We also went to the Dahl Auto Museum. There were more than a million dollars’ worth of cars from 1917 on up in the place; mostly Fords.
This evening we learned that our tablemates on the boat, Pete and Dorathy, are from Niagara Falls and have been married 65 years! They were really fun to talk to.
Our last day of sightseeing on this cruise was spent in Red Wing, Minnesota. We took another Hop On and Off bus and went to the Pottery Museum where they provided an interesting demonstration of their techniques for making pottery.
Racheal and I went downtown and did some shopping, I got some pumpkin pie ice cream that was really good. One of the best things about this river cruise was the food. I’ve had duck, lobster, frog legs and lamb, which are all unusual for me but very good.
I finally got a picture with Racheal in it, but she’s drowning in that raincoat.
We flew home the next day.