Mississippi: St. Louis

We were incredibly lucky in St Louis in a two fold way. Firstly the weather deteriorated after our already windy approach. The next day brought the biggest deluge we had seen on this entire trip and it was fantastic to be able to sit it out in a warm and dry house. After that the temps plummeted to freezing and again we were so glad not to have to paddle in that. And by the day we launched our boats again the sun was shining.

But most of all we were lucky with our warmshowers hosts Rich and Julie. Both are teachers and I asked them plenty of questions. Julie is a speech therapist and works with deaf kids using sign language. I had not known much about sign language before and her explanations opened a whole new language concept to me. I was intrigued! On top of all that our hosts had two little dogs called Mickey and Bailey whom I immediately fell in love with. Mickey could not be pet enough and I was happy to oblige. After a test run with Rich and Julie I took the two dogs for a walk on my own. This might not sound very exciting, but I had not walked a dog before in my entire life!

Our host Rich under the famous arch

Our hosts were so interesting and I had so much stuff to do on the internet that I did not do any sightseeing in St Louis - shame on me. At least we made it to one of the casino boats were we all had an AYCE buffet. But on the plus side I eventually figured out how to get back to Germany and how to walk a dog... Time passed way too quickly and after two happy days we were re-assembling our boats next to the famous arch and embarked on the third stage of the Mississippi.