September 12, 2006 – Rain, Rain, Go Away

We left St. Louis at 8 in this morning in the rain and arrived in Springfield, MO around 5 this afternoon…..in the rain.  So it was definitely not a top down day. I did locate the Sirius Satellite ’60’s music station so I had that solace to get me through the day.

Highlights of the day: Meramec Cavernswhere legend has it Jesse and Frank James used to hide from the law.  The cavern has a chamber that is one of the largest in the world.  At times in the Fall they have a gospel sing with 3,000 people in attendance.  OK, now I am a bit claustrophobic and thought of all that vibration and noise bringing the roof down nauseates me.  Other  than that it was a very entertaining tour.  More importantly, pumpkin cheesecake at the Route 66 Cafe in Rosati, MO.  I cannot leave out the picture I got of the A & W Rootbeer family (Father, Mother, Daughter, Son) perched on a trailer top beside the road.

I tried to get Nancy to go through the Riverside Reptile Ranch but she was having none of that.  I even brought up the Milk Dud again in the hopes guilt would win out but nothing doing.

Tomorrow we head out of Missouri fpr a quick brcuh with Kansas before plunging in to Oklahoma.

Even with the rain,

Life is Good

September 11 – Okay I’m Back …Kinda

It appears I have lost my motherboard, whatever that means, so my computer is out for the duration.  However, I believe I can find enough places like this Courtyard where I can get access and keep writing.

So…to catch up…

We left Chicago yesterday morning about 9 after breakfast at a great diner called Lou Mitchell’s on Jackson Street.  The story goes that in the early ’50’s the guy who invented Milk Duds was looking for a way to promote his new product.  At that time Lou;s was one of the main eating spots for travelers heading out on ‘66 so Lou started giving a free Milk Dud to every female customer.  The tradition continues today.  I was looking forward to taking this souvenir, placing it on a shelf in the study so for years to come I could pick it up and tell people the story of Lou Mitchell and the Mild Dud.  However, before I could turn around Nancy ate the Milk Dud.  Said it was her Milk Dud.

We started out in a cold, misting rain that persisted for most of the morning.  We finally got the top down about lunch and great afternoon for touring.

Highlights? How about the 30′ Gemini Giant or the 30′ Paul Bunyan eating a giant hot dog.  How could you not be impressed with the Spire, a sculpture in a strip mall in Cicero of a giant needle with 5 cars impaled on it.  Funk’s Grove, IL for maple sirip (that’s how they spell it), and several great old restored ’30’s era gasoline stations.  And this is just day one.

We wound down at the Chain of Rocks Bridge where 66 used to cross the Mississippi in to Missouri.  It’s closed now but we were able to walk out on it .

We crossed the Mississippi in to Missouri and got to the motel here in Saint Louis about 7:00; a very long day of almost 300 miles.  If we had gone down I-55 it would have taken about half the time but we would have missed the bar where Capone used to hangout.  It has a neon sign martini glass with a cherry in the bottom.  They say when there were ladies of the evening inside they turned on the red cherry light in the glass so those in the know would know.

 Today we went up in the arch in Saint Louis and, more exciting, had a Heath-bar “Concrete” at Ted Dewes Frozen Custard on Route 66.  To define a  “Concrete” think of a “blizzard so thick you can turn the cup upside down and the custard stays in.  This place has been around since 1931.

Tonight it’s Cardinals baseball and as I like to say,

 Life is Good.

Septembe 10, 2006

My computer crashed today so I don’t know exactly when I can send an update. Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday.

We did arrive in Saint Louis today as scheduled and will be here until Tuesday.

Our best to all and Happy Birthday tomorrow to Lou N.

September 8, 2006 On the Way

We left Hartsville this morning at 8:30 AM with the top down and our ears laid back.  Nine hours later I am writing this from my motel room in Jeffersonville, Indiana.  Yes – we are still on speaking terms.

Today we crossed NC, TN, KY and into IN.  Tomorrow we will go about 5 more hours to get in to Chicago and then really start the trip on Sunday.

I always pride myself on being a storehouse of worthless knowledge so here goes.  From GA to KY i.e TN South to North is only 150 miles but East to West i.e. NC to AR is 451 miles so Tennessee is almost 3 times longer than it is wide .  This means – are you ready? – When you are in Bristol TN you are closer to Niagara Falls than you are to Memphis.  That is totally worthless knowledge but will win you are a bar bet or two.

For the two of us this is new territory evenwith all the travel we have done.  Neither have ever been to Louisville or crossed the Ohio River.  Had a great meal at a place called the Buckhead Mountain Grill overlooking the river.

Don’t look for another entry until Sunday.  Tomorrow we see a little of Chicago and go see the White Sox tomorrow night.  After all, would we take a vacation that didn’t include at least a little baseball?  Since that doesn’t really fit the theme of this diary I’m taking the day off. 

I’ll leave you with this.  This morning as we left Bishopville, SC in this red hot convertible, I looked at the country ham biscuit on the dash, the thermmos of coffee in the cup holder, the good looking woman beside me and I said to myself…..

LIFE IS GOOD.

September 7, 2006 – The day before leaving

When I was 10, or maybe 12, at least sometime in the late 1950’s, two young men in my hometown of Madison, NC walked out on Highway 220, stuck out their thumbs and headed for California.  They thumbed and bummed rides all the way there.  They got a job in the bean fields and earned enough money to buy an old broken down jalopy that was to get them back to North Carolina.  Half-way back the jalopy blew up and they returned home as they had left, on their thumbs.

 

They became instant celebrities because in the late 1950’s in a small southern town, before the coming waves of integration, Viet Nam, The Bay of Pigs, Kennedy and King’s assassinations,  and the countless other complexities of the next decade, theirs was a feat of almost heroic proportions to a pre-adolescent such as myself.  Their story ignited wanderlust in my soul that has yet to be quenched.

 

In 1965 I read Kerouac and the flame burned brighter.  In 1968, at age 21, and knowing that in a year I would either be in Viet Nam or in the start of a career, my best friend and I threw a pup tent in the back of  a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda and began our own westward trek.  Unfortunately we did not return as hometown heroes; in fact except for our families the event went pretty much unnoticed.  In 10 years the world had shrunk and although it was a tremendous personal adventure it proved not all that newsworthy.  Although today when people talk things like San Francisco in that time period I know I was there.

 

As my life has progressed I have chased this traveling muse from Shanghai to Piedras Negras, from Ranier to Nova Scotia.  I have done more than I ever dreamed and less than I want.  So now it is time to begin again.

 

Tomorrow morning Nancy and I will leave in red Mustang convertible, headed for Chicago and the  trailhead of old Route 66.  We will start there in Sunday, September 10 and will stop whenever we get to the Santa Monica pier in California.  We have set plans in Chicago and St. Louis, but beyond there our only plan is to have no plan.

Life is good.