Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [48]
The trip took about four minutes, near the end of which the little pod appeared to go straight up for a short time before resuming its strange zigzag movement and arriving at the top.
I’d been in a few other monuments in my time, like the Atomium in Brussels and the Walter Scott Memorial in Edinburgh. And I’d always wanted to go inside the Statue of Liberty, but never managed it, although I can tell you a story that will make you jealous. Once, on Elton John’s birthday, he took me on a trip around Manhattan in a helicopter and we flew around the statue. Then we hovered right in front of her face and had a good look. Are you jealous yet?
Anyway, back to the arch. At the top, there’s a small observation capsule with a great view. I’ve always loved being up high, so it was fantastic to gaze down at the State Capitol Building and the riverboats far below on the Mississippi. I was a bit disappointed that no one asked me how to spell Mississippi, because it was one of those words that they tested us on again and again at school. Back in those days, I’d never have dreamed that one day I would be at the top of a huge monument looking down on it. Isn’t life the strangest thing?
Just as I’d done from the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, I gazed west, contemplating where Route 66 would take me next. Whereas Chicago had been the central distribution point for goods coming from and going to the West, St Louis was often the starting point for people moving westwards. This was made possible when President Thomas Jefferson bought fifteen US states and two Canadian provinces from the French in 1803. Doubling the size of the United States, the Louisiana Purchase included all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, as well as parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado that lie east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi, including the city of New Orleans. In addition, it contained small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Jefferson commissioned two Virginia-born veterans of the Indian wars in the Ohio valley, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to survey all the rivers and land west of St Louis. Accompanied by a fifteen-year-old Shoshone Indian girl called Sacagawea, they crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific Ocean in present-day Oregon, claiming all the territory that lay beyond the nation’s new boundaries for the United States. This led to the biggest migration in history, as people from all over the world first arrived on America’s East Coast, then moved west.
While up in the observation deck, I met a nice family from Newfoundland. I’ve never met a Newfie I didn’t like – they are fabulous people from a breathtakingly beautiful part of the world – and these Newfies didn’t disappoint. They even knew who I was, which made a pleasant change from being mistaken for John Cleese.
From the Gateway Arch, I headed to St Louis station, to see its own famous arch. I took a taxi again, but a huge parade was blocking off several streets, so I was forced to continue on foot. On the way, I passed a park known as the Citygarden, which was chock-a-block with some fabulous sculptures. I was fascinated and went