Missouri #42

Missouri, Kansas City, MO to be exact. Dashed into and through this city on our way to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to find, admire and photograph one of the Ladies’ most favorite works of art in the whole world – the wooden Quanyin Bodhisattva. If you aren’t acquainted with this piece of sculpture from 9th century China, we’ll just let the photos try to convey its superb beauty.





This is an incredibly huge art museum and houses collections from around the world spanning 5,000 years of human achievement. The buildings themselves are works of architectural sculpture, resting in the midst of the 22 acre Kansas City Sculpture Park. It would probably take days to see all of the galleries and collections so the Ladies confined themselves to the Asian and Egyptian Collections in the 1933 neo-classical main building and to a brief glimpse of the African art in the new, modern addition, known as the Bloch Building. We highly recommend a visit the nelson-atkins.org website.

Sculpture Garden



Main Building









Asian Collection











Egyptian Collection





Bloch Building







Next stop was at Lake of the Ozarks, MO to visit a friend, Laura and her lovely family – Cam, Liliana and Madeline and the pug Lady, Moopy. Nice folks, nice kids and nice visit to a vibrant lakeside community.






We worked our way slowly east toward the little town of Alton, just north of St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. We had read about this area in several travel publications and it sounded almost too good to be true. Alton is very pretty and had a lovely bridge, covered in yellow vinyl and paint. It is known as the Clark Bridge and is a beautiful design.


We stayed in the Pere Marquette State Park and poked around the area for a few days discovering another confluence. The Illinois River comes into the mighty Mississippi just a bit north of Alton near another sweet town named Grafton.



Pere Marquette, a French trader, had passed through this area in the 1600’s. While here he saw a fearsome Illini Indian painting up on one of the sandstone cliffs. Known as the Piasa this bird/lion/dragon creature was part of the local creation/protection myth. It has now become the local symbol for tourism and commerce. Truthfully, I thought the caves were a whole lot more interesting!






We were going to stop at the museum and home of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man, who actually died at age 22 in 1940, after attaining the remarkable height of 8 feet 11 inches, but we were distracted by the natural beauty around us. We found lovely little towns tucked here and there between the great cliffs and the rivers, filled with unique architecture, lovely yards and wonderful trees.


I was constantly drawn westward toward the rivers so finally we went over to tour one of the 29 locks on the Upper Mississippi. These lock and dam systems were built, forming a stairway of water from Minnesota to Illinois. Because the upper Mississippi drops some 420 feet between Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN and Granite City Illinois, these locks were built to sort of even this out this drop. They do this by creating 29 huge steps which allow ships and barges to enter, drop 27 to 60 feet in a controlled manner, and then move smoothly out of the lock and down the river to the next lock. On the Lower Mississippi, the river does not need locks and dams because, with the addition of the Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Ohio and other rivers, it has become naturally wide and deep enough for navigation.





Also at this site is the National Great Rivers Museum, an informative display of the geology and history, emphasizing the importance of these mighty rivers to the formation and expansion of our country.



Another stop was at the actual confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. Remember we have more or less been following the Missouri since way back in North Dakota where we photographed the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. Truth really is that I am into this ‘fluence’ thing; I don’t have much influence, certainly don’t have affluence, so may as well have confluence! It was also the spot where those two busy boys, Lewis and Clark, had stopped for a while around the winter of 1804 before heading up the Missouri to the uncharted wilderness, the Pacific coast and history. I tried to get down to the water’s edge for a swim but it was just a little too big and swift for this old dog. I decided I could wait for a few more miles until the River flattens out a little more! I also was a bit dumfounded by the shear size of this water and kept remembering when Cokie walked across the Mississippi way back at Lake Itasca in Minnesota.





We continued on down the Great River Road Scenic Byway to St. Louis
to photograph the Arch. We all decided it was too hot for me to stay in the Pod while the gals tried to take the gondola chairs up inside the arch. (Actually the Gals had heard from several people how little the space was and how small the windows were, so decided that claustrophobia is not one of our friends!)


Since we had literally stopped on the Illinois side to get this shot of the arch, it became a really easy decision to just turn right around and head straight to the Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site in Collinsville, Illinois, about 10 miles down the road. We’ll include this amazing place in our next blog. Until then “Happy Treking” however you do it!