To celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary we decided to take an upper Mississippi River cruise.  We took an American Cruise paddle wheeler out of St. Louis, MO and were to end up in Minneapolis, St. Paul, MN.  Unfortunately, we were only able to up the Mississippi as far as Hannibal, MO before we had to turn around and go back down river.  There had been quite a bit of rain farther up river which had caused it to rise to the point where the boat could not get under the bridges. 

We went back down through St. Louis, MO and then up the Ohio River to Louisville, KY.  Although we weren’t planning on ending up in Louisville, KY we enjoyed the trip.  Betz and I had started our marriage out in Louisville, KY as I was stationed at Fort Knox, KY when we got married. 

All in all we enjoyed the trip and met some very nice people.  Originally we had planned on meeting up with friends in MN so we flew from Louisville to Minneapolis.  Unfortunately we arrived too late in Minneapolis to meet up with our friends so Betz and I had our anniversary [October 1st] dinner alone at a very nice restaurant just outside of Minneapolis, called Axels River Grill in Mendota, MN.  We had wanted to go to Manny’s in Minneapolis, MN but due to the Rider Cup golfers being in town we could not get a reservation.  The dinner at Axels was very good and we would go there again. 

Pictures from the cruise are in the Mississippi River Album.