We started the day heading towards St. Louis. Like usual on this trip, we were hell bent to stay off of main or interstate highways. We did this to see the country not to get places. Our time is never spent focused on the destination. We are always enjoying our journey. The windy roads through SE Missouri were beautiful. We were on the bluffs above the mighty Mississippi River. We passed through town after town. Missouri is the eastern beginning of the end of wide open spaces. There are still plenty of forests. There are places you could walk for hours without seeing people. There are, though, towns every 10 miles. There's just a little town with a small to medium size downtown areas dotting the countryside. As you slow down in each one of these towns, you scratch your head trying to figure out how a town of 500 people could support such a big auto dealership. You also quickly learn where Walmart's bread is buttered. It's buttered with a stick on each side in these parts. Empty storefronts in the aforementioned downtown areas are proof enough of that.
The cutest and most interesting of all the towns we visited, at least in Missouri, is Ste Genevieve. Buildings dating from the late 1700's line the streets. Missouri has a rich history that includes French colonization in the late 1600's. There is even a language called Missouri French that is now nearly extinct. I, myself, come from a rich French heritage. In yesterday's blog I discussed the county named after my family, Bollinger. Bollinger is now pronounced just how it sounds.... but maybe with a little more southern drawl than you would automatically use. But it's a French name. I'll try to do this phonetically.. It is pronounced bo-leen-jayr. The French colonization is nowhere more evident than in the architecture of Ste. Genevieve. As a side note, there was heavy Irish immigration in Missouri in the 1860's and 1870's. This, along with Native American, is where I get most of my ancestry.
We knew we weren't making great time but we couldn't help stop and snap a few pictures and let Willow pee at least twice. It's important to let Willow pee before you get in the car on a long 20 minutes before the next pee.
We threatened to have some lunch in this cute little place, but we got a little late start and then we meandered more than we anticipated and it was continuing to get later and later.
So we headed to St. Louis. St. Louis is a really cool city, full of music, and food, and architecture, parks, and friendly people. We still had 280+ miles to go to get to Chicago when we arrived and it was already after 2 when we pulled in. So we decided on a little leg stretch at the Arch. When we got there, I was actually gonna take Willow to the top, but the wait turned out to be over an hour... so we got some pictures, walked a couple of miles, and loaded ourselves back in the car.
It's off to our destination state of Illinois!!
This was to be the most painful state line picture yet. We crossed one bridge (over the Mississippi) and the damn "Welcome to Illinois" sign was in the middle of the bridge. So we headed back into Missouri and found another crossing at Alton, IL. This wasn't so easy either. The sign above was at the tail end of bridge. There was no parking anywhere. So I just parked on the street (you can see our car behind my head), threw the hazards on, stated over and over again that I was a tourist from Oregon. I setup the tripod to all sorts of funny looks, got our picture, and got outta there.
We hadn't eaten for quite a while by this time. We decided that we better get a bite in Alton before buckling down for the next 6 hours of driving. We happened upon a little walk up window called Fast Charlie's Chicken. Oh hellz yes! As I stood in line, mouth salivating, I watch women and children, men and boys walk up to the window ordering gizzards, chicken livers, fried chicken, ice cream, deep fried cauliflower, okra. I know I am an atheist, but I can't help but think that this is where people from Missouri go to after they die, if of course they have been stellar citizens and honest mates. They would have had to spend their life worshiping the good chicken with hot sauce and fried okra. If they didn't they were destined to a life below swimming in a sea of original recipe and KFC cole slaw - not so bad really. The chicken was good. The deep fried cauliflower and okra were outstanding. Because it was all deep fried, I resisted getting a chocolate malt. I will regret that decision for the better part of my life.
Our bellies full, we start the long winding beautiful country drive to Chicago.
We will arrive in this quaint little city after a beautiful drive through scenic Illinois!! <record scratches across the record> <the music stops> <everybody turns to stare at me as if I just played a Metallica tune from my ass bugle>
Illinois was the most boring state we have driven through thus far...and we drove through Nebraska!!
We gave country roads a shot for about 2 hours. I am always itching to stop and snap some photos. There were no photos to be had. After those 2 wasted hours, we headed to the biggest fastest interstate we could find and headed for the biggest city I have ever been in.
Chicago is huge. I know that it is nearly a 3rd of the population of New York. I have been to New York and LA. The only 2 cities in the United States bigger than Chicago. Chicago just feels bigger than both of them though. It goes on for hours. Most of downtown, they don't even call downtown. It's neighborhood after neighborhood separated by nothing. It takes a good 3 hours to get from one side to the other. I don't know... it just seems so huge. It's also cool as hell! More on that in tomorrow's blog.
Tonight we had every intention of checking in, prettying ourselves up a bit, and heading out for food and beverages. We just didn't have it in us. We ate some of the Dexters ribs we have been keeping chilled with us and drifted off to sleep.
Tomorrow we'll be walking the streets of Chicago... drinking in what it has to offer. Until then....
Our route today: http://g.co/maps/x7a6w
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