Under the banner of the Gateway Arch, the tallest monument in the country, his body perfectly aligned as a human compass, he ponders.
Here ahead is east where the sun rises. Washington DC lay ahead, as well as New York, Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island and all those other early states where settling pilgrims first set foot from across the Atlantic and where Irene caused some damage a few weeks ago. Here where he stands was a frontier. To think that all the country was in space are ended right here by the banks of the river. Then came the Louisiana Purchase that gave the country a new lease of life and a chance for the whole of the body of land for a country. Lewis and Clark stood here with boats and tools as they set forth to discover the source of the river, and what else lay out west.
It is easy to ponder what would have happened if another country began from right here which spoke only French. Even without that, all the language influences remain in the town names all around here: Edwardsville, Maryville, Fayetteville, Collinsville, Louisville, Carlinville, Belleville, Taylorville, Greenville, Catonsville, Merrillville, Vermontville, Danville, Warrenville, Romeoville, Pinckneyville, Nashville, Shelbyville, Jacksonville, Lawrenceville, Naperville, Libertyville, Higginsville, Aullville, Boonville, Wentzville, Noblesville and the very many dozen -villes dotting this area and the Mid-western landscape.
On the last frontier at Arizona, Nevada, Texas and California (which, in this position, would be behind him) was of course the other country whose language was mainly Spanish. What is exceptional, in the end, is the way the circumstances were turned to an advantage, and the luck of being able to forge one country that occupies a distinct geographical space.
Standing here, facing Mississippi, even without the positioning of the sun, the moving waters carrying debris from everywhere, left to right, point to the direction of the south. That’s where Katrina went.
A little after we left Cahokia on Saturday, we headed to the St. Louis to visit the state of Missouri’s most famous landmark – the St. Louis Gateway Arch, also called the “Gateway to the West” because of its place in history as the spot where the first expedition to the Western part of the United States began. It is an integral part of the 
The St. Louis Arch is located along the Mississippi river and close to the road bridges that connect the states of Illinois and Missouri. It is called the Gateway to the West because of the role it played when officers 
At the top, we got off and walked up the flight of a few steps into the observatory itself where we were able to look down out of a series of windows. Even though it didn’t shake with the wind that must have been blowing outside, and even though there had never been a terrorist or vandalism attack on the monument that could have given me given me fright of death or falling, I felt a little afraid looking into the river from over six hundred feet above the earth. What if? There was a helicopter landing pad nearby where one landed and shortly took off. From afar, I could see that it was a tourist helicopter – for hire – and not a police one, so I wasn’t immediately relieved from my anxiety. If anything had happened while we were up there, I’d probably be long dead before landing on the pavement below, except I was lucky to have been blown by a strong wind right into the Mississippi river.
But we were lucky, Reham and I. There were no attacks, and the uniformed officers on the observation deck with us didn’t have any work to do while we were up there than to pace up and down observing everyone as they did so. When we got enough of our shots up there, we went back down the same way we came, this time faster. It is always easier coming down in an elevator than going up. We then went around the gift shop, and later into the theatre within the complex, to see a documentary movie about the expedition of Louis and Clark, also eponymously titled, before going into the museum where we saw even more of the Native-American history. The famous expedition of officers 
Today, I went to the Principia College, Elsah Illinois with two professors from SIUe and another international student from here. Retired Professor Wilson had been invited to give a talk on diversity to a few students in the University, and it turned out to be a nice experience. The campus of the College (called University in Nigeria) is located at a site off the river road and overlooking the great Mississippi River. No words can describe the grandeur of the river as seen from the road while driving. I’m much convinced that it would look and feel so much better while on a bicycle. According to Prof Wilson, Mark Twain the writer used to come over to the river to get inspiration. Oh well.
The journey to Principia took a little over thirty minutes from the SIUe campus, and we had to pass through a few small towns including Alton and Elsah, each with a repertoire of historical information, especially about the Native Americans that made the area their habitation for many years before their forceful dispersal. Alton has the famous Clark Bridge, and the even famous painting of a prehistoric piasa bird on the face of the cliff also overlooking the Mississippi river. According to Wikipedia, Alton has “its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, and brick commercial buildings”, and it counts among its famous former residents Miles Davies, the legendary trumpeter/musician, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who was murdered in 1937 for his role in anti-slavery movements (and after whom the Library at SIUe is named), and James Earl Ray, the murderer of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr.
One of the notable sights on the way from Edwardsville are the many oil refineries in Illinois that litter the way. “Those refineries refine the crude oil from Nigeria”, the professor quipped “before they are sold in the United States at different rates.” The crude oil is brought from different parts of the world – and indeed from Nigeria – in large ocean vessels, are refined, and sold as “gas”. What he didn’t know until I told him was that the finished petroleum products are also sold back to Nigeria – like chocolate products – at exorbitant prices whenever the steam engines of Nigeria’s refineries go down and the continent’s petroleum giant finds it hard to refine its own products. Passing through those areas of Illinois that I’ve never been before only reminded me of Nigeria’s Niger Delta: plenty smoke in the air, and plenty smell of gas – a depleting environment under serious gas pollution.
The Principia College is an institution for 