We arrived in St Joseph, aka: St Jo, on Thursday, 5/21. We were actually one day early because we made better time coming up from Bella Vista than we thought we would.
To back up a tad, we spent a couple of days in BV with Tom and Sandy going over some last minute things with the caravan. We had lunch with some fellow Diamonds, Jim and Ali Rixman, who have been to Alaska before, on their own. They shared some of their wisdom and remembered some things I had forgotten about Canada. For example, in the grocery stores in Canada, in order to get a grocery cart, you have to put a coin into the cart isle (none of us could remember if this is a loonie or a coonie) but you get this back when you return the cart to the correct location.
Back to St Jo...yesterday we headed for the Patee House Museum, which was a luxury hotel built by John Patee. The hotel cost $180,000 and had 140 rooms on 4 floors. It opened in 1858 and is a National Historical Landmark for its role as headquarters for the Pony Express, starting April 3, 1860.
The hotel was called World's Hotel when Jesse James was killed just a block away on April 3, 1882. Jesse's home was moved to the hotel grounds, and displays artifacts found in Jesse's grave during the 1995 exhumation.
After the museum, we decided to drive around the downtown area and look for the 'Westward Ho' themed art work. We found one of these, then went on to see if we could find some more. Not two blocks down we saw a sign for the St Jo Genealogical Society...need I say more??? Can you guess where we spent the rest of the afternoon??
Today we are sitting in the trailer with the windows open, a nice cool 66*, waiting to see what the glob of nasty weather coming up from Texas is going to do. Right now it looks like it is heading in a NNE direction, straight into Nebraska where I have family in Hastings, York and Lincoln, and of course, St Jo is just east of the Kansas/Nebraska line. Heads up everyone!!
Notice a lack of pictures??? That's cuz we forgot the camera.
Phil did take some pics with his phone and has finally put them on the computer, so I can share them here...
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