Thrilling Day! Nah...

Brandy and Norman at the KOA Dog Playground tonight

Day 38 Eureka MO to Richmond IN

345 Miles

I wish I could write something terribly entertaining about today's ride. I can't...unless I make something up. But I won't do that. It was just a ride, a long ride.

We left Eureka ( a suburb of St. Louis) at 9:00 to miss most of the rush hour traffic. The worst part of being in more populated areas of the country is traffic and bad highways. The combination of heavy truck traffic and winter weather makes for bumpy roads. And everyone knows how much we love bumps...sarcasm here.

At one point this afternoon I tried to open the refrigerator while going down the highway only to have everything on a the top shelf on the door come tumbling out. The vibrations had knocked the shelf off its track. At least it wasn't as bad as last year when Jim's hot sauce spilled all over the inside...it looked like Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator! This time only pickle juice spilled, not nearly so messy.

Crossing the Mississippi River

It didn't take us long to cross over the Mississippi River and into Illinois. We took I270 and I255 to get around STL to I70 which we stayed on for the rest of the day. This is one stretch of I70 that we've never been on before. The scenery was nice, as long as I can look at something besides DIRT, I'm fine. I was a little surprised at how treed Indiana is, I remembered it as more farmland... maybe the area I've crossed in the past (north of here) has more farms.

We lost an hour getting back into the Eastern Time Zone. Bummer, I like Central. I can get to bed at a more decent time...Tonight Show starts at 10:30pm, much better than 11:30pm!

It was around 5:00 when we pulled off the highway to a KOA right on the Ohio/Indiana line. We're down a gravel road, in farmlands. But there are plenty of trees, a pond and GRASS! The dogs are happy.

We had an easy dinner, thanks to yesterday's 'to go' boxes. The RV smelled wonderful...eau d'Italian restaurant. Which is soooooo much better than wet dog!

Later, we needed to move our bodies a little so we took a walk. The campground has a nature trail for about a half mile in the woods. Jim is such a city kid, stuff like that makes him a little uneasy. He's fine in a city ghetto, but wood scare him, go figure. We questioned the trail a couple of times, as it would split here and there and with less than a hour of daylight, all I could think of was getting lost out there. I'm the one who wanted to take the trail. I'd never hear the end of it if we couldn't find our way out! At least we could always hear the noise of the highway, so I knew we couldn't get too lost. I was secretly hoping a bunny would cross our path....just to see the 'city kid's' reaction!

Then we took our dogs out to the little dog agility course here at the campground. Agile shih tzus...NOT. They were afraid of the equipment. I ran around the the perimeter and they followed, so they got some exercise. I need it more than them these days!

Rookie isn't too fond of the see saw, Norman loves it!

Tryint to teach Rookie how to get over the bar
His way is better...go around it!



From looking at these photos I see I need a root touch up badly!

Tomorrow we are heading toward Lake Erie and points northeast.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Day 37 St. Louis Missouri

June 3, 2009

The Gateway Arch

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday, when we arrived a the campground it was hot, humid and sunny. This morning was cold, damp and rainy. It never got out of the 60’s today.

We’ve been through St. Louis many times but never stopped at the Arch. Today, after the rush hour passed we took I44 and I51 into the city. Tom Tom did us wrong, but we found our way back over the river (the BIG river) to the Arch.
On the way from the parking lot across the park from the Arch we noticed all the downed branches from yesterday’s storms. I couldn’t help but wonder how scary it must have been to those in that park during the height of the storms.
The way up to the top of the Arch is interesting. We rode in small cars that were similar to those on an enclosed Ferris wheel. Obviously, a ‘regular’ elevator wouldn’t work on the curved structure.

Inside the little cars

At the top

Visibility wasn’t the best on such an overcast and rainy day, but we could still see quite a distance through the tiny windows at the top. The Arch is 630 feet tall at its highest point. After all the mountains we’ve been on, it didn’t seem too high.
Later, we viewed the documentary explaining how the structure was built. We were amazed at the lack of safety equipment in use at the time, the early to mid 1960’s. Obviously, no OSHA back then.

Tame little bugger in the Arch parking lot

It was past lunch time when we left the Arch. A restaurant in the local Italian district was recommended to us. We had an wonderful lunch at Rigazzi's in the Hill area. Actually, it was lunch and dinner, we weren’t hungry for the rest of the day….and we only ate half our meals, portions were large…and good!
Plans to visit the botanical gardens were thwarted by the rain and cold, so the Arch and lunch was ‘it’ for St. Louis. We were trying to get back to Eureka before rush hour .

He only smiles like this for veal

Tomorrow we are leaving here and heading northeast. We are freezing, tonight’s low is forecast to be in the upper 40’s. Yikes! Yesterday I never would have guessed that tonight we’d have the heat on!