The flights to St. Louis went smoothly. I got there just a little while before my friend Sallie, so we were able to share a cab to the hotel. Our room had a lovely view over a park with fountains, and if you looked out way to the right, you could see half of the Arch. The hotel was also next to the baseball stadium, so there were Cardinals fans everywhere. We soon met up with Chris, George, Liz and Dave and got initial information from the American Steamboat folks about breakfast, luggage pick up, buses to the boat, etc.
After breakfast the next morning (September 13), all but Sallie and I went off on a brief tour of the city. Sallie and I read and people-watched in the lobby until they got back. Then they all walked over to check out the Arch, but there wasn't time to go up in it. After pizza (Imo's) for lunch, we boarded one of the buses wrapped in a photo of the American Queen for the trip to Alton, IL where the boat was docked. Boarding was a painless process since all the paperwork had been done back at the hotel.
Our cabin is very large as is the bathroom...logical as it is a handicapped accessible cabin. Our luggage was already waiting for us, so we got unpacked pretty quickly. I discovered that I forgot to bring the adapter thing that lets me upload photos from the ccamera to the iPad, so no photos until I get home. Sorry.
The food on board is everywhere and excellent! In addition to the dining room, there are several areas with coffee/tea and cookies, and one with on-going snacks as well as popcorn and soft serve ice cream machines. At dinner last night, George had a pork chop that was the biggest any of us had ever seen...huge in diameter and about 1.75 inches thick...if not 2 inches. George shared tastes of it with the 5 of us and I swear my bite melted in my mouth like butter on a hot biscuit! This evening at dinner, my appetizer was frog legs (yes, I really did eat them...I have 5 witnesses who were actually more interested to see me eat green beans) while my entree was Parmesan crusted chicken with a lovely garlic cream sauce. Yum.
Our schedule has changed from what I posted above due to flooding upstream. Instead of the first day (September 14) just cruising along, we had to hurry to Hannibal because we had to get under the bridge there before the water level rose too much as that's the lowest bridge on this route. So we had a short visit to Hannibal, then lowered both the stacks and pilot house and squeaked under both bridges there one so close that some crew up top had to duck. Today (September 15), we had a stop at Burlington, Iowa. Tomorrow we will be cruising with a brief stop in the afternoon at Clinton to receive an honor from the mayor there. After that, back on the original schedule.
The entertainment on board is some of the best I've seen on ANY sized ship. So far in the Grand Saloon in the evenings we've had a fine jug band, a man named Bill Prince who plays fantastic jazz on trumpet, clarinet and flute and lectures on the history of jazz while doing it, and this evening a program with 4 singer/dancers doing more jazz "Bourbon to Beale." Then each night in the Engine Room Bar there's been a duo called Jackie and Bobby on piano and base guitar that are really goo. Last night they did 50s and 60s music, this evening they did C&W, and tomorrow should be Beach music. There is one pianist/singer who plays before and after dinner right outside the dining room whom none of us like, but he's pretty easy to get past without stopping.
I haven't been ashore yet, and might not bother to go at the other stops either. I'm sending my camera ashore with Sallie who forgot to pack hers. They all go ride around on the AQ hop-on-hop-off buses then choose what to stop and see in detail. Then I get reports back from them all when they return. Did I mention that the weather is a bit chilly? Meanwhile, Chris and I are having fun sending postcards to a third grade class in Harrington, DE. We've learned a number of things about these cities in an effort to have interesting things to write about.
The St. Louis 1904 World's Fair was where ice cream cones were popularized in the US although there were edible cones used before that in Europe.
Hannibal was named for the Carthagian general and not Hannibal Lector as our cabin steward thought.
Burlington is/was called the Backhoe Capital of the World. It's also the home of Wallace Carothers who invented Nylon and Robert Noyce who invented the integrated circuit (microchip) and is a co-founder of Intel, all of which changed our world.
That's about it for now. I'll try to keep up better.
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