Route 66 : St Louis

By admin, October 5th, 2011 | America | 0 Comments

Billy Connolly’s second programme was a disappointment. Like Him Indoors he went to the top of the ‘Gateway Arch’ which Rider did not – one look at the tiny cubicle in which you had to ascend was enough to bring on an attack of claustrophobia. The arch symbolises St Louis being the gateway to the West and is quite a remarkable feat of engineering and of some interest .. but the museum underground at the foot of the arch is hugely interesting and missed out by Billy.  I know he is concentrating on the Route 66 car stuff but that Route was following in the footsteps of the way West taken by so many and five minutes spent on looking around it would have been worth five minutes musing from the top of the bl..dy arch!  Photographs in the museum showed wagons being hauled up mountainsides that you wouldn’t have climbed up with high tech gear. Pioneers were born and died on the journey – Plains Indians fought to stop the rape of their land – people with the promise of a better life battled across endless wilderness in search of their dreams. By God I could have made a better programme than Billy Connolly  – he even missed out the St Louis HQ of Anhauser Bausch who make Budweiser beer.  Massive brewery which you can tour – the highlight for Rider being the Palladian stables which you would have been proud to have lived in. The Budweiser Clydesdales are famed throughout the world and feature in all their adverts – have a look on YouTube – the adverts are fabulous and every one tells a great story. There are just a few horses kept at the HQ with most being ‘upState’ on their ranch and they appear all over the world at Shows – 8 in hand! Absolutely amazing and Billy never went to see the brewery……   Rider calculated that the programme was about 35/40 minutes long as the rest of the hour was taken up with adverts. Should have filmed me and Him Indoors….