Good morning from Atlanta - that's right we're currently at our home in Atlanta
and we just got back from taking a road trip up through the Midwest
Some background information - I went to school at Iowa State University and this year my
fraternity chapter hosting a 100th year anniversary at our University
So we decided to go up and it's gonna be a little homecoming for me and this time
Michael was going to come along - yep, so we took a week off and we made that road
trip. So here are the highlights. We started off our journey from Atlanta, all
the way up o St. Louis, which is some eight hours away. We're about to
cross the Mississippi River and see how long it's gonna take us to get across
22 Mississippi
oh it's Busch Stadium, that's where the St. Louis Cardinals is playing -
The next day we spent the whole day touring downtown St. Louis where the
famous Gateway Arch National Park is located. We started off at the Old
Courthouse. We're in the Old Courthouse down by the Gateway Arch and this is the
courthouse where the famous case Dred Scott took place. Dred Scott and his wife
were from Illinois, where slavery was illegal and they moved to Missouri where
slavery was legal, and they sued the government to get their freedom. The
court voted 7 to 2 against them, so Dred Scott is typically known as one of the
worst Court decisions in US history that's where I'll tell you where in the
courthouse where that took place
Now we're gonna explore a famous landmark that you might have heard of
We arenow standing in line to go to the top of the Gateway Arch, about 600 feet up get
these tickets I guess. in order to get to the top of the Gateway Arch we
experience the unique elevator ride that occupies a very small space
Oh my god oh we're gonna be best friends
cozy make yourself cozy
... and stairs
This the elevator ride up was pretty cramped. It goes directly up and in
sideways in some bunch diagonal I really need to see anyway we're gonna show you
some pictures now of the city from the top of the Gateway Arch both the city
side and in a city river
the idea of basically free flying 630 feet above the ground is
a little bit terrifying but here you could actually look directly down the
bottom and then you can feel it's kind of swaying back and forth, which is
completely normal. But I can imagine being up here when there's like a huge
storm or some kind of a high wind, I'd be freaking out, but for now I'm still fine
haven't passed out yet
and didn't collapse oh it's a good thing it's strong
that's it we're going back down actually I come to the Gateway Arch the museum is
kind of neat too so I recommend highly that you go
through it there's a lot here about the founding of the Midwest Lewis and Clark
natives building reconstructions all the historical sites especially on the
Mississippi River and Louisiana Purchase you should definitely check it out
probably would take you about a half an hour 45 minutes to go through either
before or after your ride check out the movie that they do we really like that
about the building of the Gateway Arch then do your ride and then come down and
see the museum's actually
this is all the arch this is where we park by the stadium why doesn't he have
a head or hands
the next day we drove from st. Louis to Hannibal Missouri which is about two
hours away Hannibal Missouri is located on the banks of the Mississippi River
and it turns out that Hannibal Missouri is the
birthplace in my Twain so we are exploring the Mark Twain boyhood home
and museum next to the Mississippi River behind us so right now we're gonna head
into the boyhood home and then after that we're gonna look at places like
Becky Thatcher house and we've also heard that the Unsinkable Molly Brown
was born here so we're gonna go over check out and see if that place is open
too so let's go
we'll be watching
right now we're at the Mark Twain Museum and its place where they have scenes
laid out from his books and things and upstairs
apparently there's a real nice riverboat exhibit over take a look at that
bring the riverboat whistle I know Holly feel like that and there's also some
Norman Rockwell paintings up there that I know ha'la'tha is really annoyed does
it actually feel like a raft yes why this is shaking yeah why is it shaking
this is it suspended oak there's a sign over here that says please don't jump on
the rest I didn't jump in it I didn't get the camera turned on fast enough but
the first thing you started doing when he got on the raft was started jumping
for me the highlight of this visit is the Norman Rockwell paintings which is
the permanent collection here at the Museum gallery so how have you seen any
of these before I've seen several of them and I which ones I didn't expect to
see it here I know we've seen this one here I've seen this one here yes and I
know I've seen this one before and I think almost everyone's seen this
one
exploring famous landmarks oh crap it's not gonna be so bright to be perfect
let me see that
we are currently 630 feet it's a lot of smudges Newlands nope we have a train
behind us