Day 18 - to St Louis, Missouri

Interesting day, with interesting weather.  But more on that later.

Today, we set out to find Daniel Boone's house.  On the way, we drove along a beautiful country road.  Here's a photo of a quaint farm house and barn, along the way.

Quite a lot of farmland in this area.  These are young corn plants, I think.

From time to time, the roads got quite leafy and it was almost as if we were driving through a tunnel of trees.

Butterflies too...

 

And here we are at Daniel Boone's house.   He spent his last 20 years here and died in 1820, in the top right room of this house; his bedroom. 

There's an enclave of other old houses in the large grounds of Daniel Boone's house.  Most, though, have been relocated here.

There was a wedding ceremony taking place in an old church here.

The flower-girls posed for us to take a picture.

Back to the old buildings, surrounding Daniel Boone's house.  Here's another one...

And one final shot before we departed...

Back in the car and we pointed the Chev towards St Louis.  Here, we're about to cross the mighty Missouri River.

A car shop caught our eyes, so thought we'd better pop in for a look.  This car shop was the regional hub for Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Maserati, Ferrari, Lotus, Bugatti and Aston Martin.  They had all marques represented on the show room, apart from Bugatti.

This was the Ferrari section.

Out the back, we found a McLaren supercar.  Wow!

And a cool blue Lamborghini.

And there's an Aston for your Jeremy.  They have six; four Rapides.

Lambos...

You wouldn't say no, would you?

This Rolls was the most expensive car in the lot.  A V12 USD500,000 Rolls.

This Lamborghini turned up while we were there so the Brand Specialist started it up for us and drove it around the lot - rather quickly.  Without us...
 

Back in the car, and off to St Louis.  Here's the famous St Louis Arch, overlooking the Mississippi River.

You can hop in a kind of rail car that takes you to the top of the arch, 509 ft (105m) above the ground.  We queued up for a while but were told a little later they had run out of tickets and they couldn't accept any more passengers to the top of the arch.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  That's me with my arms spread, under the Arch.

The old Courthouse of St Louis is right across the road from the Arch.

There were around a dozen horse-drawn carriages parked at the base of the Arch.  Here's one taking some tourists for a ride.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at a transport museum (that was closed) and had a look around their outdoor displays.

Right, this next bit is only intended for weather people only. 

We woke up this morning to hear there was possibility of severe thunderstorms, damaging hail and tornadoes in the St Louis area today.  The National Weather Service later issued a tornado warning for the area.  Here it is...

076 
WFUS53 KLSX 282059
TORLSX
ILC163-282130-
/O.NEW.KLSX.TO.W.0015.120428T2059Z-120428T2130Z/

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ST LOUIS MO
359 PM CDT SAT APR 28 2012

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ST LOUIS HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
  NORTHERN ST. CLAIR COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST ILLINOIS...

* UNTIL 430 PM CDT

* AT 357 PM CDT...A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A
  TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR CASEYVILLE...AND MOVING EAST AT 30 MPH.

  HAZARD...DEVELOPING TORNADO AND TENNIS BALL SIZE HAIL.

  SOURCE...RADAR INDICATED ROTATION.

  IMPACT...SIGNIFICANT HOUSE AND BUILDING DAMAGE POSSIBLE. MOBILE
           HOMES COMPLETELY DESTROYED IF HIT. SOME TREES UPROOTED OR
           SNAPPED. VEHICLES WILL LIKELY BE THROWN BY TORNADIC WINDS.

* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...
  FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS...BELLEVILLE...SWANSEA...O'FALLON...SHILOH...SCOTT
  AFB AND LEBANON.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

TAKE COVER NOW. MOVE TO AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A
STURDY BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS. IF IN A MOBILE HOME...A VEHICLE OR
OUTDOORS...MOVE TO THE CLOSEST SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER AND PROTECT
YOURSELF FROM FLYING DEBRIS.
  

---

LAT...LON 3865 8973 3845 8989 3855 9016 3866 9010
TIME...MOT...LOC 2059Z 290DEG 27KT 3861 9004

TORNADO...RADAR INDICATED
HAIL...2.50IN  

I understand they only issue these when there has been a tornado sighted or a tornado is imminent.

We left the Arch to head back to our hotel, via the motorway.  On the way, I noticed some very dark clouds to the NW and at one point, the cloud descended to the ground.  So we peeled off the motorway to stop for a better look.  This is what we saw.

Hard to tell if there was a tornado associated with this but it certainly looked nasty.  This was around 3:30pm and the sky became very dark at this time.

As the cell passed in front of us, the wind picked up debris, along with very heavy rain.  It was time to take shelter.

The cell drifted away and we noticed this Route 66 sign across the road...

We eventually got back to our hotel and turned the Weather Channel on.  They were making quite a story of the weather at St Louis.  Strong winds and baseball-sized hail caused problems in the city.  One person died and 100 were injured.  Most of these people were at an event, where a large tent collapsed.

Not long after hearing this news, a tornado siren sounded.  Loud as.  Here's the offending cell.  We were able to watch it drift a few miles in front of the hotel.

It generated quite a bit of lightning, wind and rain.

After it all settled down, we took off for a meal.  On the way back, I noticed another cell had developed and it was generating spectacular lighting.  At one point, it was flashing every one or two seconds.  I haven't seen lightning like that for years.

Here's a quick video of the storm as it was dying off.

One final bit of excitement today was in the form of a truck crash on the road just down from our hotel.  There are many large truck and trailer units on the motorways here.  One had somehow landed on top of the concrete barrier between the east and west-bound lanes.  Massive traffic jams resulted.