St. Louis Blues...

Grand old Union Station, now converted to a hotel and shopping mall.

St. Louis MO is a big and important city on this journey! It is where both the Illinois and Missouri Rivers join the Mississippi. Historically, it is a crossroads of continental trade as a major river port and later one of the largest railway hubs. We learned that Europeans first started here at the end of the 17th Century after the French ignored Native American ownership and claimed the land. The settlement was named Saint Louis by Pierre Leclede after the French King. In 1803, France sold much of the midwest to the United States, the Louisiana Purchase, St. Louis with it, and the city then became the base for American expansion west. The magnificent, underground Museum of Westward Expansion is here, underneath the iconic Gateway Arch.

Statue at Laclede's landing place, together with down and out residents enjoying the welcome sunshine.

Covered wagon, iconic image of America's push west of the Mississippi, in the Westward Expansion Museum.

St. Louis' "Old Courthouse" where significant decisions were made on civil rights.

St. Louis looks to be a proud city sadly in decline. The population has been reducing since the 1950's and it shows. The route we happened to take into the city was through poor, negelected and, in some cases, abandoned areas. To make it worse, St. Louis was totally unprepared for the polar vortex despite plenty of warning. It doesn't snow that much in this city, and the heavy storms of the past week firstly shut it down, then left it floundering in a mess of mostly uncleared roads and totally uncleared sidewalks. They are calling it "road slops". As we drove in, the local radio was full of how the city has stuffed up and what they should do about it. And later, with temperatures risen to about 0C, it turned into a slushy mess, reminiscent of Perisher Valley! We felt distressed but quite at home in this icy and muddy mess. However, conditions were so bad on our first full day in St. Louis what with steady rain and impassible footpaths that we retreated to the Plaza Frontenac shopping mall and went to see Inside Llewyn Davis, the lastest Coen Bros movie, not their finest effort. The shopping centre itself was unlike any other we have seen in the USA, what with only upmarket stores and cafes, and no fast food outlets. We found out later that there was a big RV show on in town - if we had known, we may have spent that wet day at the show which was bound to be a relevation to us Aussies.

The next day could not have been more different. In the morning, clouds cleared to reveal perfectly blue skies. Much of the "sidewalk slops" were still there, but at least we could now explore the city. The main streets are Market and Washington - we walked them both.

It was Saturday admittedly, but Market Street was very quiet - no pedestrians and few cars. Numerous grand buildings line the street. One is the grand old Union Station, formally a massive railway passenger terminal, now tastefully renovated and rebirthed to a Hilton hotel and shopping mall. The shops seem to be struggling, but it is winter, definitely not tourist season in St. Louis. The current Amtrak station has been exiled to a block or two back from its fabulous old terminal. Another fine building is the "Old Courthouse", now a very interesting museum, focused on slavery, civil rights and their related significant court cases, one of which was the trigger for the Civil War. (Missouri was a slave state, made interesting because Illinois, across the river, was a free state.)

The winter sun flares from behind the Gateway Arch, with the Interstate 64 bridge crossing the Mississippi River.

The Gateway Arch at the eastern end of Market Street, conceived in 1933, designed in 1951 and completed in 1965 (a saga rather like the Sydney Opera House), is downright astonishing and awe-inspiring. It is the indisputed symbol of the city. From the CBD, you can't appreciate how big it is (it is, according to Wikipedia, the largest arch in the world). When close to it, and underneath it, it is staggeringly large and beautiful, clad in stainless steel and reaching high into the sky.

This far south, and as the weather warms, the frozen river itself is starting to break up. We saw some barge tugs runing their engines if not actually going anywhere, and crossing the Eads Bridge in St. Louis on our first day here, muddy water was appearing between sheets of ice. By the next day, this ice seems to have mostly disappeared, and the Mississippi now looks like a regular river, even blue!

Cobblestone paving provides great character to the Landings bar and restaurant area by the river.

Thanks to roadworks preventing our intended walking route, we stumbled into the Landings area of town. At last some life! Here there be bars and nightclubs, and we had a sandwich and a drink at one of them. Cobblestone streets too, to add to the area's ambience. An emergency visit by the St. Louis Fire Department added to the fun.

Enjoying a mid-afternoon cleansing ale at Hannigans Bar in the Landings.

Detail of the Eads Bridge reveals its age, texture and structure. Metro trains run on the level below the road deck.

Classical steel structure of the Martin Luther King Memorial Bridge.

The walk uptown back to our hotel was up Washington Street. Still pretty quiet, but more people and traffic than Market Street. More grand buildings here, but this time they are old warehouses converted to apartments and hotels. At street level, there are good numbers of restaurants and bars, bowling alleys. Even the occasional store, but this downtown seems to be devoid of the shops and department stores which define other cities. They must be out in the suburbs?

Inside this 8 lane bowling alley we found a wedding reception going on.

Keeping Warm - Travelling South...

Typical red farm barn near St. Donatus IA

Throughout the cold-snap affecting the north eastern United States we notice that the usual expression "have a nice day" when you depart a business has been universally replaced by "keep warm". TV, radio and print media are full of "be careful" and "stay indoors", but we haven't noticed any exhortations to say "keep warm". We don't know how this has become so common! Maybe we don't use the right apps? The news is now pointing out how the temperatures are lower than at the south pole! One hundred year records have been broken.

Spectacular church under steep bluff near St. Donatus IA

As we head south, following the Great River Road on one side or the other, keeping warm is becoming just slightly easier. The polar vortex has gone somewhere else. It's not that temperatures are rising much, but we just feel that it is just a little bit less bitter. In the Quad Cities IL/IA, for example, we were prepared to park and rush into shops, cafes and bars without our full compliment of clothing on. Maybe we are getting acclimatised, but the temperatures were still well below zero in Celcius.

Christmas themes decorate many houses, this one near Bellevue IA.

Bridge over Mississippi River between Sabula IA and Savanna IL

Every town features unique Christmas decorations. This example, Savanna IL.

Over three days, we made the drive from Dubuque IA to St. Louis MO, with overnights at the Quad Cities and Hannibal MO. When we are on the west side of the river, we are in Iowa, then Missouri. On the east side, it's Illinois all the way. We swap from one side to the other based on the towns we want to visit, and where the light is, for photographs. But the sky is mostly grey and the light isdead. Sunshine increasingly became a rare commodity. For the first time, we saw clear water on the Mississippi River at about Port Byron, IL. But the water was still mostly thinly frozen and no sign of any attempts at navigation. No ice fisherman any more - we suppose the ice is too thin. The countryside is still 100% snow covered. We made some navigational blunders following the river road stretch from the Quad Cities to Hannibal. The area is called "yellow banks" which we assume is a reference to the endless cornfields which are, at the moment, covered in snow. We were slowed down by a snowstorm and a whiteout for about half an hour. We did see an unexpected covered bridge somewhere in Henderson County, and the huge Mormon Temple in the tiny riverside town of Nauvoo was an amazing sight. The river was really wide along here. And departing Hannibal, we had to deviate from our planned riverside route because of a train derailment. We passed some pretty towns on the Illinois side of the river, and managed to miss entirely the supposedly must-see village of Elsha.

Penny farthing sculpture in Port Byron IL town square.

Suprise discovery of a covered bridge in Henderson County IL

Wherever we stay at night, we have adopted the habit of calling into a bar somewhere within walking distance (if possible) of our hotel. We get tips from the hotel receptionist and the app Yelp. Our drinking habits have solidified. Clare chooses a cocktail from the menu, and Mike has taken to ordering Jim Beam neat. It's cheaper than drinking Glenfiddich, and much more available. We are enjoying these bar visits - we go to trouble to engage the bar-keeper in conversation - this is not difficult because they know it helps them get a better tip. Mostly, barmen and servers easily recognise that we are not locals, but they can rarely guess correctly where we are from. A waitress at the Crumbles Cafe in Savanna IL seemed to think we were the most unusual customers she had ever dealt with - it's a small town way off the tourist trail!

The Quad Cities straddle the Iowa/Illinois border and comprise Davenport (where we stayed), Bettendorf IA, Moline (where we found a good Walmart) and Rock Island IL (where we got lost getting out of town). Our Great River Road bible Road Trip USA by Jamie Jensen, had warned us that the Quad Cities was an "enormous sprawl". We didn't hang around here any longer than necessary, but, superficially, we'd agree with that assessment.

Iconic Mormon Temple in the tiny town of Nauvoo IL

Hannibal MO is the boyhood hometown of Mark Twain, and it has the cutest historical downtown. On our visit, you could shoot a cannon up the main street and not hit anyone. Then we realised, this is a tourist town that may only come alive on weekends. Some shops were only open Friday - Sunday. But we found an open cafe, Java Jive, where, despite language and nomenclature difficulties, they tried very hard (and succeeded) at getting our coffee order right.

Snow clearing by the Mark Twain museum, near his boyhood home, in Hannibal MO.

The Mississippi River is crossed by dozens of spectacular steel bridges, this one from Louisiana MO into Illinois.

Road signs highlighting the Great River Road and the St. Louis MO area where the Illinois and Missouri Rivers join the Mississippi.

Approaching St. Louis, we had seen flocks of swans flying overhead with their necks outstretched in a beautiful formation, then we heard on the radio that rare Trumpeter Swans could be seen at West Alton on the northern outskirts of the city. These swans were hunted to near extinction decades ago, but are reported to be making a comeback. As we went through West Alton, we saw a bird sanctuary right at the intersection of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and went into it. Lo and behold, we spied some of the endangered species on a rare patch of open water. There was only one other car there, and they had a camera with a much longer lens than ours! This tiny encounter with rare wildlife was a major highlight of the day.

Lighthouse at Grafton IL, together with statue of trumpeter swans?

Rare trumpeter swans have been seen in open water patches near St. Louis MO, and is distingishable by his black beak.