The Exploration and Discovery Tour

The Exploration and Discovery Tour
10:00 am to 4:15 pm
$68.00 per person (price includes transportation, donation to museum, and admission to tower; bring money to purchase food and beverage at Ramon’s)

Our group will travel by coach to the Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum, to Woodhenge and Monks Mound at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, and to the Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower.

Our first stop is the Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum located in a Curtiss-Wright hangar at St. Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia, Illinois just a few miles from the Arch. Explore the museum’s aerospace artifacts and discover historical information about Greater St. Louis’ impact on Air and Space. Learn more about this historic site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, at their website.

Next we will travel to the Cahokia Mounds State historic site, home of Woodhenge and Monks Mound. One of the greatest cities of the world at the time, 1250 AD, Cahokia was larger than London. Archaeologists discovered postholes during excavation of the site to the west of Monks Mound, revealing a timber circle. Noting that the placement of posts marked solstices and equinoxes, they referred to it as “an American Woodhenge”, likening it to England’s well-known circles at Woodhenge and Stonehenge. The structure was rebuilt several times during the urban center’s roughly 300-year history, showing its significance. Please visit their website link to learn more more about Woodhenge.

Exploring Monks Mound and Woodhenge will make everyone hungry so we will lunch at Ramon’s El Dorado in Collinsville, Illinois. Mexican cuisine has been popular in St. Louis since the 1904 World’s Fair; Ramon’s opened in 1967 and is still a destination restaurant. Participants will be responsible for the cost of their own lunch; meals range from $10 to $20. To make paying the bill more convenient, please bring cash. To see Ramon’s El Dorado on Facebook click here.

After lunch, our last stop on the Exploration and Discovery tour is the Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower, where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi River, and where Lewis and Clark set out on their journey in 1804. On a clear day visitors can see downtown St. Louis and the Gateway Arch 19 miles away.