June 3, 2008

June 3, 2008

Aimee and I are on somewhat of a quest to see most of the National Park Systems’ sites. We didn’t start out that way, but the more we have seen the more we want to see. In general all the sites are interesting and well done, although a few I suspect the result of a politician’s deal to get federal government money. The NPS holdings have ballooned to almost 400 locations and rising. So in that spirit, we took a break from our vacation and drove into St. Louis to see the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. I had assumed I had seen it as a kid on the almost yearly school trips to Grant’s Farm, but that Anheuser Busch-owned venue is separate and next-door. Both were originally part of the once-larger Dent plantation.

After graduating West Point in 1843, Grant was stationed at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. That is where he met Julia Dent, whom he married in 1848. At the site we join a guided tour of the bright green plantation house and then peruse exhibits and a film on Grant’s life. Grant was an ardent anti-slavery advocate who married into a slave-owning plantation family resulting in frequent heated arguments with his father-in-law in the years leading up to the Civil War. This history brought alive why Grant was so successful as a general. He was cause-driven, whereas most of his failed predecessors were closet southern sympathizers who weren’t committed to winning the war.

On the way back to Godfrey, we stopped at the St. Louis Zoo to see the animals that we missed on our visit last Christmas. I am a little worried about gas prices. Despite the high price, the roads are still packed in the middle of a weekday. Prices apparently are going to have to rise considerably higher before we really reduce consumption. And our RV is not helping the situation either!!