Caking on the East Side of the River (Cakes 96-105)

This morning, Holly and I started out early. We were excited that it wasn't going to be rainy all day! We went to East St. Louis to get the five cakes there, and then the two in Cahokia, and then the two in Columbia and Waterloo...and THEN we drove all the way out into corn country to see the Greenville Public Library and their cake. It was a 10-cake day!

Here's the cake in Lincoln Park. It's a "space oddity" cake...looks like the cake comes alive and eats aliens, or something. Strange...

The cake had a lot of standing water on it from the storms yesterday...so when Holly tried to stand on it, she got wet!

This is the Katherine Dunham Museum. Katherine Dunham settled in East St. Louis, Illinois, for a while in the 1960's (she was born in Chicago). She was a dancer, educator, activist, and is known as the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." (Wikipedia) When she lived across the street from this museum (which she started herself), she was working at SIUE. (Makes me think I should have gone there to get that cake today, too...)

This is the cake at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center. It's a great cake, and a very nice location! It's obvious that a lot of money went into this center; it was built in 2000.  The MetroLink Station is nearby. I've discovered that this place was basically saved by an anonymous donor in 2011; due to mismanagement and other problems, the center closed in 2009. Jackie Joyner-Kersee is still heavily involved in it, spending a lot of time here. She lives in Town and Country, though. (And that's as about as opposite as you can get from East St. Louis.) More information about the center is here.

The morning sun was shining right in Holly's eyes! It was hard to get a good cake picture here!

The next East St. Louis cake location is the Municipal Building.

Then Holly and I drove to the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park to find cake #100! The cake is located up high, on the Overlook! This is another relatively new addition to East St. Louis, and is doing a lot to revitalize the area. It was opened to the public in 2009. I think I got lucky finding my way here; on the website, it says that GPS and mapping devices have trouble with the park, and you should follow their directions. I'm thinking I'm going to start looking places up online before we go there, too, instead of afterwards. I didn't know about the Gateway Geyser, that's the other big ticket item at the park...and it only erupts three times a day during spring and summer months. Now I've missed it, and we won't be back in this area. Oh well! It would have been cool to see it!

The cake is decorated like a camera...and the "picture" is in front. Clever!

It looked like we were so close to the arch. Holly wanted to go up inside! I told her we'd have to wait for Chloe; Chloe really likes the Arch, and I wouldn't go there without her. Holly didn't realize that we were on the other side of the river.

Holly can hold the St. Louis Arch in her hands!

Malcolm W. Martin lived from 1912-2004; he went to Yale, was a lawyer, and received a Bronze Star for his work planning coordinating the D-Day invasion of Normandy during WWII. He later helped to found Channel 9, advocated for civil rights, and had many other venues of community service. He wanted there to be a park on both sides of the river surrounding the St. Louis Arch.

 

The next cake is located at the Church of the Holy Family in Cahokia, Illinois. The original church was built in 1699. This log cabin church, built in 1799, replaced that one.

Holly thought that by posing this way, she'd look like she was lifting the church. I love it!

This cake is at the Old Cahokia Courthouse. Holly went inside to get some brochures, because it's always fun to look at brochures! Sometimes they have maps!

The Monroe County Welcome Center used to be the Historic Shoemaker School. 

On to the Monroe County Courthouse...

Holly and I had a nice lunch break at the Applebee's in Waterloo, Illinois. That's where the Monroe County Courthouse is. I would like to lodge a formal complaint with the STL250 committee that there should have been a perimeter established for these cakes...and that each cake needed to either be in the boundary of St. Louis City or County, and if it was in the wider Metropolitan area, the link to St. Louis needed to be clearly stated somewhere. I mean seriously, folks! Waterloo, Illinois?!? 

Then, because it was a beautiful day, and because I was able to talk Holly into it, we decided to drive to Greenville, Illinois, to visit the public library there. They have a cake. We passed by a lot of cornfields on our hour-long drive. This is the cake that is the farthest away from us, I do believe. 

The library was opened in 1905, and is one of the few Carnegie libraries that are still functional and in use today. Many of the items inside are original. Holly and I didn't go in to look around. We thought this cake looked like a St. Louis baseball game. See the stadium, the people, the scoreboard, and Rally Squirrel? This cake is sort of out of place here. But that's OK. We came, we saw, we took a picture and checked it off of the list!

While in Greenville, Holly and I went to the Dollar General Store. I figured that such a good cake buddy needed a prize for her hard work! She picked out a new umbrella, and asked for one for Chloe. Then she picked out a new bow and arrow set, and asked for one for Chloe. There's also a lollipop just for her. So that's why her arms are so full!