St. Charles

Last weekend, Norleans and little Norleans and MW and I headed to St. Charles, a little old-fashioned town on the Missouri River where Lewis and Clark set out from back in the day (1804).



There's a cute little touristy main street. They decorate it for Christmas. And when there's fine weather on a December day, all of St. Louis goes up to St. Charles to walk around. Seriously. The streets were more packed than they were in Chicago. And when Cardigan and I were in Chicago we got caught in the thralls of a press of people at a parade.

There were lots of people dressed up like the olden days and like fairy tales. Like carolers and Jack Frost and Mrs. Clause and Scrooge and on and on. 



We had old-fashioned milk shakes at an old-fashioned ice cream store (which, I think, was named exactly that). (I loved those flying saucers in my penny-candy-from-the-corner-store days.)



Awesome: American Santa Clause! I felt like I was in Texas.



And, of course, there were loads of little shops. My favorite was this antique store.