St. Louis

May 20th:
Yesterday we started the northward stretch. We left New Orleans a bit later than planned. I blame it on the Insectarium - they run entrance at that place like Fort Knox. We also missed the world famous chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House by 30 minutes. Bummer. We were finally on the road by about 3:30pm with a really long stretch ahead of us. The campground at Trail of Tears National Park was originally our destination but we found out en route that the grounds close at 9pm and there was no way we were making it in time. All of the other campgrounds on our route, aside from some KOA's along the interstate, had a similar closing time. Something about setting up camp at a KOA right on the road at 2am just didn't sit well with us. (Probably had something to do with the Guadalupe experience...)

So we went for it. Even though we've had quite a few big driving days - anywhere from 8 to 15 hours - we had not done an all night drive yet so it was due. We made it to just outside of St. Louis by about 3:30am and figured we could find a super cheap motel but all of them were upwards of $65. (!) We ended up parking behind a Motel 8 next to a huge truck stop and sleeping in the car. Check off the obligatory sleep in the car.

A few hours slept, we headed into downtown St. Louis and convinced the hotel we were staying with that night to check us in at 7:30am instead of 3pm. Sweet! Showered, dealt with NY apartment stuff, and finally had a nice lunch at Morgan's, a local microbrewery.

Route: I-10 - I-55

The weather in St. Louis was so beautiful; a mellow mid-70’s with a calm breeze, brilliant blue sky, verdant trees, the intense gleam of the stainless steel of the Gateway Arch and the muddy brown thick ribbon of the Ole Miss. I’m not mocking the river. It is a magnificent and tranquil presence as it strongly and gently drives mud and debris down through the country.

The Arch is pretty neat to look at. It seemed a little incongruous to me at first but it is massive and graceful and it becomes familiar rather quickly. We decided to take the tram to the top of its 635 feet. We climbed into a tiny metal pod with 2 women and their little kids. The pod bore a strong resemblance to one of those emergency jettison pods that equip Stars Wars ships. Tiny.
We exited the pod at the top and were we pressed up against the crowd and the tiny little windows looking out over St. Louis on one side and Illinois on the other. It was worth going up there.



That night we got tickets to the Cardinals/Cubs game. (Colin is a Cards fan.) We had a great time and the Cards won! Mmmm, nachos and Bud.

May 21:
Onward to Chicago! It is only about a 5 hour drive...