Saturday, 7/12/97
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At
7:30 AM, we finished breakfast and drove back down to the Gateway
Arch. We parked at the stairway leading from the bank of the Mississippi River up to the base of the Arch. There
is a giant sternwheeler Mississippi riverboat right next to where we parked. We bought tram tickets again along with tickets to the movie chronicling the construction of the Arch. From the top, we can look straight down and see the Beast, our now faithful transportation
to the West. It looks tiny, but we recognize it by the wooden boards that are
lashed onto the roof rack. Looking out the west side windows we can see the RV
park where our trailer sits twenty-two city blocks away. We are enthralled by
the view in all directions, including a grassy area to the southwest of the Arch that appears to have a walk through maze
laid out on the turf. Finally, we yielded and made room for others up top and
rode the tram back down to see the movie.
After the movie, our third in three days, we walked through the Westward Expansion Museum, and headed outside to find the maze. It is much harder to
see the traces of footpaths worn down by the passage of many feet, but it is there.
We see evidence that there were dividers of some kind separating the concentric pathways. There are painted lines along the unworn ridges of grass between the pathways. We speculated that it was a part of the Independence Day celebrations that we missed because of the car
troubles. We follow the paths that now serve no purpose, follow them around and
about, never stepping over the unworn grass dividers, just so they will still have a purpose.
We tire of the thankless job that someone had to do and walk a few blocks to the historic "Old Court House" museum. This is the very building where the first Dread Scott Decision was made. The one where our US courts said that a slave was just property and was not entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Our great and beautiful country has been very ugly in the past. Someday, God willing, this will be a politically beautiful country, as well as scenic.
We returned to the RV Park at 11:40 am to
find that our trailer, which we had closed up ready for travel when we got up this morning, had not been washed as promised
by the caretaker. So we hooked up the grimy trailer and headed for Grain Valley, Missouri, our next planned campground. We are at the campsite, located in a small
town just east of Kansas
City, by 4:30 pm. It is 95
degrees here and we had a late lunch, so we put off dinner until 6:30 pm. It is still hot out so we have ham and cheese again to avoid
the heat of cooking.
Bob decides that he is tired of getting dirty each time we set up or take down the trailer, so using Laundry Liquid
(Wisk) in a cooking pot and a rag, he washes down the outside of the trailer, from trailer hitch to license plate, finally
removing the transmission fluid film that has been on it since the breakdown. He
washes even the safety chains, the propane tank, the latches, and the spare tire. It
was a labor of displeasure that put an end to most of the bad karma about our journey.
Since the trailer was set up for the night, the roof got missed, but that could be done in the morning just before
we pull away.
Time
for showers and postcard writing and bed.
