Getting Our Feet Wet

For our first day actually on the Trail we decided to visit a few of the towns on the River in Missouri.

After fighting the St Louis and St Charles traffic for a while, we decided to find a good little back road food stop and wound up in Marthasville at a place called Treolar Bar and Grill. The sign said "Beer and Burgers," and what could be better than that.

It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it is really quite nice inside, the food was great, with friendly service staff. We didn't realize it was a biker bar until we found that it is not only right on the marked route of the Lewis and Clark Trail, but the Katy trail. This is a 240 mile bicycle trail (longest in the country,) the State has designated as a State Park on the old Missouri - Kansas - Texas railroad. Kansas - Texas, KT or Katy. There were quite a few "bikers" there at the time.

I turns out that there are a number of pleasant little towns on the banks of the Missouri, and we visited a few.

Washington Missouri has a park right on the water front. It seems that they all do!

So we finally got our feet wet in the River, well, John and Doc did at least.

The Corps camped here on 5/25/1804 They had just passed the small town of La Charette, the last white settlement they would see for two years.

Two days earlier, during the first days of the voyage, Lewis was nearly killed when he narrowly escaped a 300 foot fall the rocks below.

We found a number of interesting places in New Haven. One was a boutique brewery where they distill corn whiskey and age it in used Port casks.

How could John resist two of his favorite flavors?





Another find was a memorial to John Colter.

John Colter was a member of the Corps and an excellent hunter. After they returned, he returned to the West and found Yellowstone for the enjoyment of future generations. He also was a mountain man and trapper and had a fascinating adventure with the Indians that we will tell you about when we see you.

This is a boulder the citizens of Montana donated for the Memorial.

 On the way to Hermann we saw a red tailed hawk and a family of a mother and four young animals that appear to be weasels.

Hermann is about as German a town you will ever find outside of Germany. It has a winery - of course it does. We tasted some wine, bought some wine, cheese, bread and sausage. They are Germans, after all. It all made a great supper tonight.

Didn't attend a concert, but would love to.

Pleasantly tired after a full day - planning more adventures for tomorrow.