Two Beers and a Pretzel

St Louis. was the commercial hub and the last large city for the West-bound pioneer back when riverboats ruled the waterways.  Then trains came along and bypassed St. Louis for years – until a bridge was built downtown.  The Eads bridge was actually the first steel cantilevered bridge in the world.  The bridge used steel arches to support the cantilevers, thus inspiring the more familiar Gateway Arch.

I rode in the cramped elavator-like cylinders to the 630 ft peak of the arch to take in the view on a cloudy day.

Then spent some time in the pretty nice underground museum facility which held some interesting and well designed exhibits on westward expansion and the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Back outside, I found a good use for my super wide angle lens on the SLR…

Around 2PM I hit the road again to continue on Route 66, but every time I tried, the traffic was horrible and there were way too many stoplights, so jumped on I-44 and drove for a while.  Taking a 40 mile diversion from Route 66, I figured that I was too near to Branson to miss the ‘Vegas of the Midwest’, so I shot down 65 and arrived in time to see a show called ‘SIX’.  A bunch of brothers (six of them – go figure) have a pretty good acapella show.  Think of it as a gospel / barbershop quartet with a ‘human beat box’, and the soud effect guy from Police Academy.  It was about what you’d expect from Osmond-esque variety show fare, but some of the songs were pretty good and the beat box guy was amazing.

I’m sticking around Branson tonight and tomorrow night because there’s a great classical guitarist playing late tomorrow afternoon (seriously, go to YouTube and search for ‘classical guitar’ and this guy comes up #1) – and it’s low season so it’s only $30/day for a decent motel with wifi.  And there’s all kinds of goofy tourist stuff to do here.