Weekly Wrap UP 10/9/20-- 21 years and counting

 Last week my husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary!!  It has been a wonderful ride and I wouldn't change a thing.  Here's to another 21years babe!  

Still going strong -- we aren't perfect but together we do pretty well:)

A couple of weeks ago we needed to get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful fall day.  We had heard about Bellefountine Cemetery and decided to explore figuring it would be safe and easy to socially distance.  The Cemetery is well known to be beautiful and the final resting place for many distinguished citizens from the St Louis area.  It also the final resting place for many Civil War veterans. 

There was a lovely lake near the front entrance

Lots of flowers and pollinators throughout. I  was please with this shot There was also a water lily pond but I couldn't get close enough to take pictures much to my husband's relief.  I love waterlilies and can take dozens of pictures of the waterlilies :)

The visitors office was closed but there was a very nice brochure that recommended a 38 stop driving route to see the most notable sites.  Not all were gravesites, some were gardens, and  championships trees.  It took us about 2.5 3 hours to do the drive but that was driving slowly and stopping often to find the numbered landmarks listed.  I think we found all but two on this day.

This is an outdoor Columbarium surrounded by a beautiful garden and stream.  

This structure marked a grave and was commissioned to look like Monteverde Angel in Italy

mausoleum row although there were others scattered around as well 

Celtic cross near the church, which was closed on this day 

The site my husband wanted to located the most for William Clarks grave.  It was quite large and lots of family was buried around the monument.  It has rebuilt in 2004 according to the sign.

People are leaving coins at the based of his bust.  

Probably the most famous family is the Anheuser  Busch family and this is their mausoleum It was huge

The cemetery has an area that is free to any family from the St Louis area that has lost a child under the age of two.  This was the saddest part of the cemetery as many of the sites were covered in the children's favorite toys, we saw dump trucks, spider man masks and fairies and unicorns.  

After our lovely drive we found an outdoor restaurant that was being good about masks and spacing tables out so we had a lovely mid afternoon meal.

It was nice to get out as we are definitely feeling the effects of the pandemic and wish things would get back to normal for all.  Won't happen until everyone decides to work together and wear a mask and work to bring the positive numbers down.  Covid-19 is going up again in our area with several hospitals at or near full capacities again, sigh:(