Before returning to US-61, we stopped in Altenburg (pop. 352), one of a cluster of five villages established in the 1830s by Lutheran immigrants from the Saxony region of Germany.  Soon after the town’s founding, residents established a log cabin college, which introduced the then radical idea of co-educational schooling.  The local Lutheran Heritage Center maintains a museum and a few historic buildings, including the school.

    

Near 2:30, we entered St. Mary, MO, where we crossed over a stream into an exclave of Illinois—Kaskaskia (pop. 14), the second smallest incorporated community in the state.   First settled in 1703 on the site of an old Native American village, Kaskaskia became a major French colonial center, reaching its peak population of 7,000 by the mid-18th century. 

By the time of the American Revolution, the town had fallen into British hands, serving as an administrative center and making it a target of American forces.  George Rogers Clark led a milita expedition from Virginia to capture Kaskaskia—more than 1,000 miles over two months.   Before they arrived in July, 1778, the British had withdrawn.  On July 4, Clark celebrated American occupation of the town by ringing the bell given by King Louis XV to the Catholic Church of the Illinois Country in 1741.

Upon its capture, Kaskaskia was named the seat of Virginia’s Illinois County, and in 1787 became part of the Northwest Territory.  When Illinois was designated a separate territory in 1809, Kaskaskia was named its capital, a status it retained into the first year of Illinois statehood, replaced in 1819 by the centrally located Vandalia.  A worse fate was yet to come.

In April, 1881, spring flooding of the Mississippi River wiped out most of Kaskaskia.  At the same time, the Mississippi shifted eastward, moving into the channel of the Kaskaskia River and leaving the remains of the town on the Missouri side of the mighty river—an exclave of Illinois.  Today a handful of buildings and a few residents are the only reminders of this once thriving town.
   

After visiting this spot rife with ghosts and history, we left under heavy clouds and drove through Ste. Genevieve on US-61.  As the weather continued to threaten, we were convinced to break our interstate avoidance vow and move over to I-55 to finish the trip into St. Louis.  Severe thunderstorms were passing through the area with a watch in effect until 6 p.m.

We hadn’t been on I-55 five miles before rain descended in swollen drops—so large they made plopping noises as they hit the car.  Weather radar offered no reassurance.  Our path was about to intersect with a powerful storm cell.  In confirmation, the sky darkened and lightning began to flash wildly.
Soon the rain became a torrent, so heavy the wipers struggled to keep up with the volume of water.  As we monitored the NOAA weather radar, we watched as the yellow cell we were driving through was displaced by orange, which itself was being shoved eastward by a significant knot of red.

Pushing on northward, we were able to slip between that cluster of intense precipitation and another ahead which was still a bit west of our route.  By the time we entered St. Louis proper, the rain had slid away southeast.

Arriving just after 4:30, we checked into the Hampton Inn near the famed Gateway Arch and unpacked the car.  Unable to resist the convenience after our stressful drive, we ate dinner in the Tigin Irish Pub at the hotel.  It turned out to be quite good.

As another storm system swept through the city later that evening, we watched the lightning display from our ninth floor windows, glad to be still and dry.
Daily Stats

• Miles driven:  208
• Weather:  'nuff said
• Silos:  451
• Barns:  239
• Lumber stacks in Altenburg: 41,893
• Wildflowers:  459,760

Cloche Français, Kaskaskia

Here comes the rain