Road Trip to St. Louis

Part 1: Following the Mississippi

Earlier today I returned from a week-long road trip to St. Louis, Missouri, with my friends Kathleen and Joey. It was a great trip - with many interesting and beautiful sights observed and experienced.

Over the next week or so I will be sharing some of the photographs I took while on this road trip. I begin this evening with images from the first leg of our journey, one which saw us following the Mississippi River from St. Paul, Minnesota to Dubuque, Iowa.

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After a “Farewell to St. Paul/Minneapolis” breakfast at the Grandview Grill in St. Paul, Kathleen, Joey, and I set off on our road trip to St. Louis on the morning of Thursday, August 14.

Why St. Louis? Both Kathleen and I are consociates of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (CSJ), St. Paul Province and, as I’ll share in a future post, the city of St. Louis figures prominently in the history of the CSJs in the United States. A good friend of ours serves in a CSJ leadership position in St. Louis, and so we looked forward to seeing her, meeting other CSJs, and learning more about the order’s history and connection with St. Louis. In addition, we wanted to explore some of the many interesting river towns along the Mississippi.

Leaving the Twin Cities, we drove south on the picturesque Wisconsin side of the Mississippi. Crossing over to Red Wing on the Minnesota side of the river, we continued to Lake City and that broad part of the Mississippi known as Lake Pepin.



Above: Lake Pepin - Thursday, August 14, 2008. (No sign of Pepie!)



Above: Kathleen and her son, Joey, at Lake City, MN - August 14, 2008.



Above and below: Continuing south, we visited the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN.





Above: Joey with one of the center’s eagles and its handler.



Above: Standing with Kathleen on the viewing platform of the National Eagle Center and with the Wabasha Bridge and Mississippi River behind us - August 14, 2008.

Leaving Wabasha, we drove southward along the river toward Dubuque, Iowa. As evening fell, we paused in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where we had dinner at an old style diner called Marge’s Homemade Meals, and where I discovered that a “Veggie Burger” for Marge means a hamburger with vegetables! Joey, who loves his meat burgers and thinks I eat “too many vegetables,” thought this was hilarious. And it was!

NEXT: Part 2: Dubuque.