Missouri - Backwoods and St. Louis

From Dallas we had quite a long drive ahead of us through Oklahoma (going quite close to where my grandma grew up!) into central Missouri.  We pulled up at Nathan's grandparents and saw some faces we recognized.  We had met them at the beginning of our trip when Nathan's older brother got married in Montana.  This time, they were the hosts instead of the guests right along with us.  :)  They were wonderful hosts.  The weather was not nearly so obliging.  Grandpa Groene has a ton of land, but we didn't spend much time enjoying it because it felt like August hit Missouri early this year.  The thermometer fixed itself obstinately above 100 degrees and stayed there (even after dark it felt that hot).  The heat index and humidity conspired against us as well.  Our final foe in the field were mosquitos.  Combining all of those we nevertheless enjoyed ourselves outside at times.  On Father's Day, we went to celebrate with Nathan's Great-Grandparents (quite an experience for me...I've never known any of my great-grandparents).  That involved quite a bit of sweet tea and delicious food.  Of course, we sang for our supper.  

The Monday and Tuesday of that week we had a concert.  Monday's was a little ways in a neighboring town and Tuesday's was at the Groene's home church in Owensville, Missouri.  They were both small congregations but generous and attentive.  After Tuesday's concert, we went out to dinner with Grandpa Groene's brothers (Nathan's great uncles).  It was a rather uproarious dinner in which several new jokes were born and mirth was shared as plentifully as sweet tea (which was plentiful and ordered in an impeccable southern accent by myself).  After being made fun of for milking a turkey, we spent the last night playing a game from Nathan's childhood: King Oil.  The point of the game is to get as many oil derricks as possible on the board.  For every oil derrick you had, you would get a certain stipend every turn based on the card you turned over.  Having completely shut off the math section of my brain, I flipped over a card that gave Keaton $4,000 per derrick (he had six derricks).  Doing the math quickly in my head I was astounded and, after a brief silence, announced in all seriousness "That's a hundred thousand dollars."  ALMOST immediately realizing my egregious error, we broke out into laughter and anytime anyone has to guess at a number now on this trip... it has become 100,000 of any unit.  It was a fun game, in spite of my arithmetical ignorance.  :)

I almost forgot something.  The Monday before the concert, we drove into St. Louis to see the sights as we so often have before.  Our goal this time was the Cathedral Basilica.  Outside it is a beautiful granite construction, a burgeoning emerald-topped dome and two imposing towers.  Inside there isn't an ounce of paint.  Completed in this century following  a Byzantine style prevalent about 1000 years ago, every pictorial piece of art is a mosaic.  Over 7,000 colors of glass were used and 24 different shades of gold.  The artwork was astounding.  We asked permission from the office to sing in the sacred space and they graciously allowed us in the West Transept.  It wouldn't have mattered where we'd sung since the sound would bounce all over.  But we obediently found the West Transept and sang facing the altar to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  When we had finished a few, we turned around and noticed that dozens of people had sat themselves in the pews to listen.  We had stopped all the tours and even the janitor had temporarily stopped doing his job so that he wouldn't disturb (he later thanked us personally saying we made his day... he never heard music in here like that before).  Before we finished, one of the priests of the basilica as well as the organist and the music director's wife had walked in.  Impressed, they wondered if we would do a concert there (alas!).  We told them this was more of a farewell tour anyway.  They complimented us highly and asked us to sing one last one.  So we sang Victoria's O Sacrum Convivium, one of the best pieces of polyphony we know.  It was so amazing to hear the sound, the truth, the beauty of the music fill and reflect all around such a beautiful place of worship.  Everything from the baldachinno and the beautiful crucifix with Christ carved out of the whitest marble in the world to the side altars with statues of prayerful angels contributed to shouting "God is King" and facilitating an air of humility and awe that is so necessary for a relationship with our God.  Nowhere else have I felt I ever prayed our music better.  We were glad that the church had been so generous as to open up their sanctuary for us and to be appreciative afterwards.  

From there we toured a few more things, the Lutheran Seminary so famous for so many things (including famous Early Church historian, Jaroslav Pelikan). We checked out DogTown (the Irish center of St. Louis) and chilled in a coffee-shop for a while to beat the heat.  And finally, just as our day ended and we were about to return for a concert, we discovered that even our GPS system can get confused.  Telling it to direct us to a Bookstore, we followed is time and again to several dead ends or neighborhoods.  While this facilitated us enjoying a great slice of the domestic architecture of the city, we never found a good used book store.  :(  Instead, we were visually accosted when we walked into a modern bookstore to find no fiction older than 50 years, and a larger GLBT section than any other section of their bookstore.  Thoroughly grossed out by modern and post-modern thought... we left to go pray our concert.  I apologize for not updating sooner.  I hope to finish the updates through Southern California before we leave Southern California.  Hope all is well with all of our friends all over the nation!