9/27/14 - Rental car tour
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We headed out this morning on Rt 66 toward St Louis, MO in our rental car, a striking black Malibu, very distinctive and just like every 4th or 5th car on the road. it was a little disappointing that no one gave us thumbs up as they passed us or stopped to talk to us at the service stations, however we are not hanging out in service stations as much with the rental car. Along Route 66 we found a brick road in Virden with a mural and a nice town center park with a round about. We traveled back roads with corn planted almost to the roads edge that makes it hard to pass oncoming corn pickers as they are changing fields. The machines are quite wide. We stopped in Carlinville for lunch at a McDonald's, our first fast food meal of the trip. I needed to use the internet connection there to try and find the missing blog and pictures and fix our technical problem with the blog.
We continued on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge on hwy. 3 the new/old Route 66 in this area. We got out and walked from Illinois to Missouri and back to Illinois on the bridge.
We made in time for our appointment to ride the elevator to the top of the St Louis Gateway Arch. It was touch and go. There was road construction everywhere and Joe got stopped by security because he looked suspicious, or maybe it was his titanium knee. The elevator cars are about 4 ft by 4 ft by 4'6" and each holds 5 thin people on small plastic seats. It was quite confined. it reminded Joe of his housing unit 1000 ft down in the north sea. The top observation area was a mad house. Everyone trying to take selfies but not get in other peoples way. There was a lot of noise and the acoustics are not that good. We took our pictures looking out both sides of the arch and then got in line to go down again. In the visitor center there was a good exhibit on Lewis and Clark, and numerous other groups that had used St Louis as a jumping off place to head toward the wild west.
We had to hunt around to find Route 66 again and followed it a little further. it was getting late so I Urban-Spooned BBQ and a place popped up that was close by. Bandana BBQ is a small place with outside seating. The food was pretty good but nothing spectacular, Joe does better ribs, but then he practices a lot. After dinner we headed back to Springfield. It took us an hour and 40 minutes to get back on the interstate and it took us 7 hours to get there on Route 66. Tomorrow it's back to car show and back track to some places that were closed,..and also laundry,.. there's always that.
