9/30/14 - Fast trip toward the Albuquerque Balloon Festival

Thanks to Steve and his crew for the quick work.

The Manager looking at the car his daughter lives in Tigard and just arrived for a visit

 This morning we decided to start our last day of waiting for the T-Bird in Springfield at a different breakfast spot.  We cruised the strip in our rental care and only found fast food. I Opened Urban Spoon and found a diner called the Sunrise Cafe just a mile away with an 86% approval rating! It sounded like our type of place. Joe liked it as soon as he saw the sign on the door that said, "If you are coming in pull your pants up. " It was a busy place.  We were there about 9 am and we thought it lived up to its reviews.

While we waited for the car Joe took a nap.  I went to a  McDonald's for the wifi, After having wifi almost everywhere in Portland it is difficult to get use to the fact that rual areas may not have it available.  Looking around, I could see that I was not the only one using wifi there.

The T-Bird is back with it's newly rebuilt transmission!  We got the car about 1:30, got it packed, gassed up and hit the freeway about 2:15 in the afternoon. The first stop was Don's frozen custard outside of St Louis.  The custard was good.  It was a lot like soft serve ice cream, the good kind. The first stop was going to be the worlds largest bottle of catsup but rush hour traffic in St Louis and a 6 lane 5 direction interchange convinced us that we should  keep going and get out of the craziness as soon as possible... another reason to come back and visit again.

The next stop Meramec Caverns, the hide out of Jessie James.  They were getting ready to close so we took pictures and proceeded on down the road.

Then we stopped at Cuba, MO.  The town has murals on many walls in downtown.

The last fun stop for the day was the largest rocking chair.  The designer of the chair was painting a mural on the side of the gift shop so we talked to him for a while. We also found out that the owner of the shop was a hard hat welder and Joe explained the diving helmets that were on display for the employs of the shop.

Then on to Joplin, MO.  We filled up with 93 premium for $3.23 regular is $2.99 at flying J.