America’s only floating hotel barge will be celebrating its birthday today at a berth below the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

The River Explorer owned by RiverBarge Excursion Lines will dock downtown to celebrate 10 years in business. The party onboard, where founder Eddie Conrad will cut the cake, is limited to guests and crew. But you can toast the barge from the riverbank.

The Explorer actually is two connected barges with a dining room, bar and state rooms. The rooms are cozy, and you can watch the river roll by from your bed inside.

I’ve been on two barge trips, including one last year that followed the Inland Coastal Waterway along the Texas Coast. We cruised through the Aransas Wildlife Refuge, and saw the country’s only remaining wild flock of whooping cranes, America’s most endangered bird. (Photo above: Passengers on the River Explorer in 2007 do some bird watching from the barge on the Inland Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Photo by Tom Uhlenbrock )

The barge has just completed an excursion that traveled from Nashville, Tennesee, along the Cumberland, Ohio and Upper Mississippi rivers to St. Louis.

The barge offers four to 10-day excursions to six regions of the country.