Small Town Charm, Big City Blues

Catherine and I had grand plans this morning. We got up at 7am and hit the road by 8. We entered into Iowa (again! It seems you have to go through Iowa to get anywhere.) and by the time we got to Missouri, we needed some coffee. After stopping for coffee we found the Missouri Welcome Center and went in. We were greeted by some very excited attendants and were treated to the wonderful history of the state, all of the famous people who are from Missouri and all of the places we needed to go before leaving. In a span of 10 minutes I learned about the Pony Express, JCPenney, Mark Twain and Walt Disney. We were also given an alternate route to St. Louis that would take us there via Mark Twain's birthplace. We walked out of the welcome center with a huge stack of maps and brochures all about Missouri.

Catheine and I were kind of excited about the alternate route and decided it would be fun to see the birthplace of Mark Twain in Hannibal, MO, so we headed down the interstate and hopped on Missouri Hwy 36. We got into town, we were greeted by a huge town festival complete with shops and tons of food! After taking a fantastic picture of the Tom and Huck Monument, we headed downtown and perused the shops. We saw a glass blowing demonstration, lots of great pottery (but none, I have to say, as fabulous as Seagrove, NC) and tons of food. Catherine and I broke down and bought 2 different kinds of fudge (which we have been snacking on all day), Rasberry Chocolate and Dark Chocolate Walnut. Yum Yum! We left around 3, just as it was starting to rain a bit, and headed for St. Louis.

We took Senic Byway 79, which runs along the Mississippi River, and really enjoyed it! We saw a bunch of wonderful little towns along the way and were thrilled with all of their charm. It made me long to live in a town like Louisville, NE or Hannibal, MO, where everyone knows everyone and the world seems to move a little slower.

Just as we moved into St. Louis, the bottom dropped out of the sky. It had been a bit overcast today, but we just figured that we would get ahead of the rain and not have to worry about it...we were wrong. It poured and there was a lot of crazy lightening! We decided that we wanted to wait the storm out, so we hit a TJ Maxx and stayed until the rain slowed.

Catherine and I sometimes have a problem remembering to stop for food until it's too late. For the past couple nights, we have had a lot of trouble finding dinner so we decided to go looking for it early tonight (this was at about 6pm). As some of you probably know, we have a GPS in the car. It speaks to us in an Australian accent and tells us all kinds of information like, the closest restaurants, the closest hotels and all of the landmarks in the city. We've named the GPS Lee. Tonight, Lee let us down. Lee took us to 2 locations where Panera Bread used to be, but isn't currently. However, while looking for one of the Paneras, we stumbled upon the first capital of Missouri, St. George. It's a super cute town, complete with old brick roads and colonial looking houses. It's beautiful and very quaint; however, everything, including all of the places to eat, had closed a couple minutes before we got there.

Determined to see the Arch and find some food, we headed into downtown St. Louis. The Arch is pretty magnificent. They say that the St. Louis Arch is the gateway to the West, well for us, it is the gateway to the East. We are certainly on our way home.

Having no luck finding food downtown and the rain starting up again, we decide that we are going to leave St. Louis and head toward Louisville, KY. We hit the road, find some food and start our journey east. We decided to go about halfway to Louisville and stop in Evansville, Indiana. Catherine and I discovered about an hour and a half into our journey that we had been driving in Illinois and not even realized it! We had hit 5 states in one day! Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana!

Today was a great day for us to relax and enjoy all of the charms that the small towns we visited today had to offer. While lovely, St. Louis wasn't as exciting for us today as Hannibal was.

On to Louisville in the morning!