Hermann

Yesterday morning I was browsing online, looking for cool river towns near St.Louis. Saori came into the study (wow! we have multiple rooms now!) and suggested we go do something fun, in light of the fact that we've been getting a lot of stuff done over the last week and that our lives are about to end for several years.

A few days ago, our former professor of architectural history, Dr. Thomas Morton, was passing through town on his way back to Phoenix, and he generously made time to stop and see us so we took him out to dinner at Blueberry Hill. It was a great visit, great dinner, and he mentioned that one of the things we should do is check out the German towns.

Hermann, on the Missouri river, was described as a slice of the Rhine, complete with wineries, so we headed out there. It's a little over an hour drive out, maybe an hour and a half. The drive out of St.Louis is pretty banal with the freeway hugging light industry and malls and patriotic RV dealerships, but once we got out in the country of rolling hills and farms it became very pretty. Hermann is just south of the Missouri river, which we crossed when we came into town. We stopped into the visitor center to see what was worth seeing. While I perused the fliers for the Katy trail, Saori got into a conversation with the information lady, a very friendly elderly woman who lived nearby.

She gave us a photocopied map of the town and proceeded to highlight 80% of it while describing the various attractions including:

• The nearby winery
• The farther winery
• The local brewery which only uses imported German wheat
• The local parade route
• Her house, which has a really big porch that we would be welcome to sit on in case of a passing parade.
• The old German school
• The fireman's museum
• The Antique store
• The field that the town is slowly acquiring piece by peice to turn into a state fair of some kind but its not ready yet
• two stables that may not be open because they might be closed for preparing for the fair
• Some other, distant, wineries
• Two houses open to tours, and one that is probably not open, given that they don't have central air and its a really hot day outside, and since they don't do tours in the wintertime on account of the lack of heating. 
• Where we could find ATMs at banks, because she doesn't trust those ATMs in gas stations, but that just her opinion.

On the subject of the nearby Stone Hill Winery, we were informed that all of the children of the winery owners were all going to some kind of winery school in Napa Valley, except for the youngest daughter who became a lawyer and married another lawyer and they live in New York City if you can believe that.

And speaking of children, we also got the rundown on her granddaughter, Lindsey, who is working on a nursing degree and played volleyball for Mizzou, and who worked at Hooters to make ends meet but got to travel all over the place on the Hooters bus and is also an occasional Budweiser girl, and one of those girls whose job it is to walk with celebrities down the red carpet, but who is now being trained by the coach of former US Olympic womens sand volleyball team. We were informed that she was a real go-getter, and also that she isn't even afraid of the devil himself. We also got a recommendation for a good local wine that the winery makes.

After we disentangled ourselves, and armed with our yellow map, we wandered around the town which is small, peaceful, historic, and pretty. We stopped in a junk antique store, and hit the brewery for a tasting, which was kind of fun. Saori and I hit a sampler tray with the six beers the brewery makes. They have a nice one called Skyscraper, a very light pilsner, and Saori really liked their Hefe.

Moderately mellowed out we wandered around some more in the heat, until we decided to trek up to the Stone Hill Winery. We got a few blocks in the sweltering humid heat before deciding to drive up. It was a good call. Its a long way and up a series of hills.

The winery was fun. They had a pleasant smelling and air conditioned store/warehouse, we paid $2.50 each for a wine tour of the cellars, and we got to taste their wines at the end of the tour. We ended up picking up a bottle each- Saori picked up the Stone Hill Vignoles, which is a very sweet dry white in a blue glass bottle, and I picked up my favorite, a less sweet but crisp and dry Steinberg White. The view from the winery was fantastic, looking down into the river valley dotted with German style houses and vineyards.

All in all, worth the trip. I think we'll be back down there for Octoberfest, which occurs every weekend in October (and is probably going to be packed with tourists). 

Later, reading some of the pamphlets I picked up, I read about the town's history. Apparently, it was planned and settled by a society of German immigrants in the 1830s who were dismayed by the slow disintegration of their culture in the U.S. They envisioned a new city where they could bring up their children and keep their heritage alive, and anticipated it would become one of the major cities of the U.S. The scouting committee picked the site because it reminded the leader of his homeland on the Rhine. The original settlers quickly became disillusioned and disgruntled with the realities of harsh winters and hard living in the wilderness, and eventually severed their ties to the original committee. As an urban study, it was a dream never realized.