RAIN AND BEER

September 15, 2011  Dateline:  Grafton, IL USA

I woke on September 14, to rain and that is what it did the entire day.    Rain, rain and more rain, but Rich and Carol got my insides cleaned and Carol was able to edit some video that she took of the LST.  That night, Rich and Carol had a great Corned Beef and cabbage dinner on MY WAY. 
  The picture of the marina I am at shows how high the water can get on the Illinois River.  Notice the height of the pilings. This entire marina floats including the ships store so that  it goes up and down with the level of the river.

Today, Rich and Carol went with the owners of MY WAY to St Louis.

Based upon a friend’s recommendation, they first went to an area in St. Louis called “THE HILL”. It is an Old Italian neighborhood with many wonderful restaurants. They said they went to “Cunetto’s House of Pasta”. It was a scrumptious lunch. They had cannelloni stuffed with seafood, pasta covered with buttered cauliflower and mushroom cream sauce, pasta with Bolognese sauce, and finally Italian sausage with peppers and onions and a side of pasta.

They then went on a tour of the nearby Budweiser brewery. The facility is huge.   It produces some 18.5 million barrels of beer a year.  A barrel of beer is 31 gallons.  Do the math, that’s a lot of 12 oz bottles.  The tour lasted 1 ½ hours as the guide told the history of Anheuser-Busch and showed them through the facility.  During Prohibition, Anheuser-Busch branched off into other products including NEAR BEER.  Those products enabled the company to remain in business and when Prohibition was repealed they were ready to start shipping beer immediately.  The plant grew up around an elementary school that Mr. Busch attended.  When the city decided to sell the school, Mr. Busch purchased it and made his third grade classroom his new office.  The building ultimately became the Company’s administrative headquarters.

The tour also included a visit to the on-site stables for a few of the company’s Clydesdale horses. The company has several teams throughout the country that appear in many parades and celebrations. They have a breeding facility in Boonville,Missouri

The tour ended in the company’s hospitality room. Each person on the tour was allowed 2 glasses of their favorite beer or any other company product. I heard there was 4 glasses of Root Beer and Pepsi on this party’s table.  I guess 3 PM was too early for a glass or 2 of beer?

St. Louis was the Gateway to the West and to recognize that, a 630 foot high stainless steel arch was built.  The arch has an observation area at the top.  There are small pods that hold 5 people that take you, like an elevator, from the bottom of the arch to the observation area.  Needless to say the view from the top is terrific.



View from Top of Arch

It is also somewhat sad to see what has happened to St Louis.  The number of burned out and boarded up building is beyond belief and that does not take into account East St Louis on the Illinois side of the river, which is noted for its poverty and destroyed buildings.

The Illinois River bank near Grafton is lined on the Illinois side with high limestone cliffs. Driving a  car down the highway on the Illinois side one can easily see how high the river once was and how it carved and eroded the limestone cliffs.  There were caves and carved out areas created where the water swirled.  The rock history recorded in the carved rock is 70-80 ft above the current river level. 

The area here is much like New Jersey. The leaves on the trees are beginning to turn and the temperature has been dropping at night.  Overnight temperatures are falling into the 50’s