I had finally started to hit my stride after taking awhile to get caught up on rest. Tamu and I started our day in Hartford at the Lewis & Clark Confluence Tower, a newly erected tower built to honor the people who crossed the North American continent to explore the West from 1803-1806. Meriwether Lewis and and William Clark set up camp at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers before crossing into the West. The tower was built as a bicentennial celebration of this undertaking and provides a panoramic view of the confluence from its 150 feet height. The city of St. Louis is visible from the top. The day we visited was very hot. Since it was so new and clean, I asked at the visitor center if dogs were allowed to take the elevator up, and a helpful employee named Katie offered to dog sit Tamu while I went up. It was a very friendly start to what turned out to be a day full of kind and welcoming people.
Our next stop was Camp DuBois, where the Corps of Discovery camped during the winter of 1803-1804 as they prepared for their journey. While Lewis wintered in St. Louis and procured the goods that his team needed, Clark drilled the corps in martial skills and unit cohesiveness to prepare for the unknown. The site contains a number of reconstructed structures from the days of the camp, which I was able to explore with Tamu. The very kind park director suggested I let him rest in the shade while I explored the museum on the site. This part of the state was proving to be more like the South, with friendly people and considerable heat and humidity.
From this point, we started to journey north along the Mississippi River on the Great River Highway, stopping at towns and sites along the way. Our mid-day stop was at Alton, a pleasant town. My first stop was at the Mississippi Mud Pottery shop, where I purchased a pretty vase with a wisteria pattern that I use for flowers at work to this day. Despite the fragile products, the store welcomed Tamu while I browsed. Then I ate My Just Desserts, another great local place recommended by my guide. The pies are so popular there that the wait staff kept erasing them from the white board while I enjoyed my lunch, and I ordered a childhood favorite–black bottom cream–with lunch so that I did not lose the opportunity. It was a real gathering place of local people, and most were very friendly. The women looked well coiffed and powdered in the heat, and I felt the effects of being on the road for a nearly a week. After gorging myself, Tamu and I walked along the main street and took in the river. Alton was the site of the seventh and final Lincoln-Douglass debate in 1858 when the two competed for the Illinois US Senate seat. The two men and their wives breakfasted there before the debate, and the town has erected statues to commemorate the event. Lincoln lost the Senate seat to Douglas, then won the presidency in 1860.
We got back on the Great River Road. The Mississippi looked pretty high and there had been floods earlier in the year, but most of the people I met along the way would benchmark 2013 against 1993 when the waters hit their highest levels and flooded a number of cities along its banks. I hoped to kayak in Grafton, which is a resort town further north. My first stop there was at the Pere Marquette State Park, where Tamu and I took a hike up to McAdams Peak to see if we could spot any bald eagles and to take in views of the Illinois River that breaks off here from the Mississippi. It was a delightful hike, but I was too late to kayak and had to keep pressing north. Perhaps one day I will kayak on the great river, but not this time.
