St. Genevieve

We arrived yesterday in St. Louis and we have stepped up a few notches from the Hampton Inn to spend two nights in a dog-friendly Four Seasons Hotel. We have a 17th floor room looking out at the St. Louis Gateway Arch and also giving us a spectacular view of last night's fireworks display. We walked the dogs late afternoon in the Gateway Arch National Park, had a peaceful dinner in the hotel, and came back to the room in time for the show.

Today, we took a planned side trip south along the western shore of the Mississippi River to St. Genevieve, Missouri. This lovely small town contains well-preserved examples of French Colonial architecture. These houses were built by "Acadians" who migrated south along the river, eventually all the way to Louisiana. Acadians were descendants of French settlers in Acadia, the French colony on the Atlantic coast of North America in what is now the Maritime Provinces of Canada. As Acadians eventually ended up in Louisiana, the word Acadian came to be pronounced as "Cajun".

We visited St. Genevieve not only because of my wife's interest in architectural history, but because the architecture of our house in Georgia was inspired by a specific preserved house museum in St. Genevieve, built in 1792 by Louis Bolduc. We had never seen it in person until today. Those who know our house will recognize the resemblance, especially the roofline.

Louis Bolduc House

The Samford House

Our trip is going well. Including our side trip today, we have travelled 974 miles over four days and just started on our fourth tank of gas this afternoon. Our dogs have settled into a routine, and we have discovered they are fine if we leave them alone in a room for a while so that we can have a relaxing dinner. We had worried they would bark and howl and disturb other hotel guests, but they have been downright angelic. We think they would rather travel with us than be left behind boarding somewhere. Tomorrow we move on to Kansas City where we will have a brief visit with our friends Bruce and Liz Pendleton. Then it will be on to Nebraska Thursday.