Earlier this month, my wife and I took a quick ‘international’ get-way vacation. We savored the delights of Britain,
Canada, France, Germany,
India, Ireland and Spain – and did it all in less than
30 hours!
We left St Louis mid-morning on
Ash Wednesday and drove southwards on I-55 towards Memphis
- but soon veered off on to more rural roads and headed into the historic town
of Ste. Genevieve, near the banks of the Mississippi River. The original village had been settled around
1735 by French Canadians who farmed the rich alluvial soils and garnered salt
and lead from nearby creeks and mines. It came under Spanish rule in 1762 after
the French and Indian War and was affected by disastrous flooding in 1785 that
caused its inhabitants to relocate to higher ground two miles north. It is the
oldest permanent European settlement in Missouri.
We parked in front of the Museum, crossed the snowy street and peeked into the Church
of Ste. Genevieve (built in 1759,
named for the 5th century patroness of Paris) - unusual theses days for a church to be left open - but it was Ash Wednesday after all.
We left the beautiful church and walked a block or so where we had a simple lunch of grilled cheese and a fish sandwich in the
nearby Old Brick House.
After a few miles drive we were crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois
at Chester. The
town, built in by Samuel Smith in 1829, was given its name by his wife, Jane Thomas
– a native of Chester in the north of England. At the
Welcome Center,
we stopped to pay homage to a more recent mariner than those who first sailed
across the ‘big pond’ and up the Mississippi River
and St Lawrence sea-way centuries ago. That mariner, the 1929 creation of
Chester-born Elzie Crisler Segar, is the affable Popeye!
Leaving behind that all-American character, we headed
northwards passing the remnants of Fort
Kaskaskia, raised in 1759 by French
settlers from the nearby village
of Kaskaskia which had
been founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1703. The large area east of the
Mississippi River, known as Illinois Country, was ceded by the French to Great Britain
in 1763. In this area is the early 18th century French settlement of
Prairie du Rocher (1722) and the nearby Fort de Chartres (1718). In Prairie du
Rocher, the American Legion Post has an interesting outside exhibit of German
artillery from World War I – somewhat poignant to see this given that its centennial
is just a three months from now.
A 1913 Howitzer with a range of 9,296 yards
A 5-ton 15 cm (Krupp) Field Gun and Barrel Carrier - range 23,700 yards
Following Illinois Highway 3 (the Great River Road), we
traversed into an area of Southern Illinois that ‘morphs’ from a French
colonial heritage to one of more recent (Victorian-era) settlements by German
immigrants. It was into this area that we had elected to spend the night
(B&B-style) at a refurbished old inn in the tiny town of Maeystown.
Once a bustling community, with its own mill, it is now a
sleepy backwater with virtually no retail establishments and no visible signs
of motion - aside from the melt-water of recent snow as is dribbled down the
interesting roadside gutters outside the inn.
Our ‘home’ for the night, the
Corner George Inn, has a 40’ by 25’ former dance-hall as its
second-floor breakfast room, complete with a 14’-long dining table, period
furniture (including a phonograph, organ, piano), wallpaper and a well-stocked
bookcase. The
Inn’s curious name was derived .
. . well, see here:
After dumping our bags, settling in for a brief rest and a
quick look around, we headed out for dinner - northwards about 45 miles and
figuratively almost half-way around the globe! Our destination was the town of Swansea – bearing the name of my hometown in Wales. Though I
have never found anyone there who can (with authority) tell the reason for this
Illinois town’s
name, I suspect it may be ‘connected’ because there once were small coalmines
nearby. I couldn’t resist - though on afterthought, at great risk- getting this souvenir photo from right outside the police station:
Though the town’s name only took us about 85 degrees of
longitude to the east – the venue for our evening meal was a further 90 degrees
east - India’s Oven. An order of
potato-and-pea samosas and a vegetable biryani dish was ‘kosher’ for the day’s
observances. A night-cap of a German-style lager (Kraftig) back in the warmth
of our room at the Corner George and we were soon sound asleep – in Victorian
(and German) Maeystown, Illinois – after a day of globe-trotting.
Though Victorian in its furniture and decor, the inn had
modern facilities, including an ‘en-suite’ bathroom with a claw-foot bath tub –
so the chamber pot (aka 'the guzunder' or 'the po') served us only in a decorative function!
Arising at our customary 6:00 am, we ascended to the second
floor dining room, poured ourselves coffee and perused the many historic and
folklore books at hand whilst awaiting our breakfast of fresh fruits,
Scotch-egg and pastries at 8:30 am.
Bidding our hostess ‘auf-weidersein’, we headed off via
country roads to explore some local sites in an area that though now very
sparsely populated, bears the markings of once populous farming communities.
The first is but a dot on the map: Madonnaville. Its sole church is ‘doomed’ to
be closed by summer, but its cemetery contains the evidence of several hundred
former residents of the area.
Not 10 miles away, in Tipton, is another Catholic church –
St Patrick’s, founded in 1850 – also with a couple of hundred interred souls –
many bearing Irish surnames, such as Walsh, Kelley, McDermott, and Reagan.
Then, we first headed south to the small town of
Red Bud, looked
in at a couple of ‘craft shops’ before heading back north on Hwy 156 to the somewhat oddly ‘Bonaparte, Wellington and Belgian monument–free’ town of
Waterloo.
Again, you’ll note the strong French and German history of
the place. It was the latter nationality that was to be our luncheon focus
following a brief look around the large
Rural King Store that contains a host
of hardware, farming, and camping items – and a few (liquid-free) horse-troughs
full of baby chicks. Our destination was just 4 miles west, on Highway 156 to a
dot on the map,
Foster’s Pond, and the fabulous (but most un-German-like named)
Alte Dreamland Palace German Restaurant. Its ‘lighter side’ menu is light on the
wallet, but more than adequate on the food content. With an
‘eat-as-much-as-you-want’ soup and salad bar, bread-rolls and choice of
traditional German entrees – all for less than $10 each – you could not possibly beat that with a
stick! The staff is extremely friendly and the building’s décor – full of beer
steins and many antiquities – is a bonus to a very gratifying lunch or dinner
stop.
We ate our fill (Danke and Bitter!) then headed off on the back-roads down into
the Mississippi flood plain before joining up with I-255 and crossing
‘Ole Man
River’ back into Missouri via the ‘JB Bridge’ (named after the nearby
JeffersonBarracks National Cemetery and out via I-270 and I-64 back to our home some 35 miles to the west.
A great 2-day ‘international-flavored’ trip – and no
passports were needed.
