The Gateway Arch

Monday, 12 April 2021

Sunday evening, we ended up with our hosts for a few days, Herm and Willo Shields, in Florissant, MO, near St. Louis. We have known Herm and Willo since 1976 in Columbus, OH, and have maintained our long-distance friendship all these years. We spent a lot of time catching up with family and personal news.

On Monday morning, we set out for a Ulysses S. Grant family farm, but we had the address incorrect, and ended up in the wrong end of town. However, one of those different experiences happened as we drove through O'Fallon Park, a St. Louis city park.


All those white things in the trees are egrets! The dark spots near them are nests, so they were not just roosting, they were there for the long haul. If you are not familiar with them, egrets are a white-feathered variety of heron, and look just like a great blue heron in a different color. Willo was the first to spot them, and we spent some time checking them out.

Our next visit was to the Gateway to the West Arch, St. Louis' most notable sightseeing location. The approach to the Arch was through a park filled with trees, many redbuds.

    


Besides the obvious beauty of the grounds, underground from the Arch is an interesting museum, as well as a tram ride inside the Arch. We had all been on the tram at earlier visits, and all those tours were taken for the day, so we passed on that. There was a lot of history about the area, some on Lewis and Clarke, and many aspects about the history of America and how St. Louis played a part in that history. The museum was pretty dark so neither of us took pictures. After a couple hours, we said goodbye to the museum.


From the Arch, we went to Fitz's restaurant. Fitz's is renowned in the area for Root Beer, but we all had variations, including Black Cherry and Cream soda. We had burgers and sandwiches, and all was good. They had a display of the bottling process, which Randy documented. (Trying a video below.)


  

That was our day, we returned back to the Shields' home and talked a bunch more.











Comments

  1. AdeleApril 21, 2021 at 9:05 PM

    Very glad you got to Fitz's! Brad said, "They've got to eat there!" They were bottling orange soda, I believe, the day we were there--or was it grape? I thought it was interesting that the level wasn't always the same in the bottles as they were filled and capped.

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