The day the road trip died

Thursday, August 7th

We had a wonderful morning puttering around in old St. Charles. St. Charles was the last “civilized” stop that Lewis and Clark had on their way out west and this was the original capital of Missouri (1821-1826). It’s on the Missouri River 20 miles away from St. Louis.

We watched a boat dredge the flooded Missouri; we watched Eleni act like a dog for several embarrassing minutes at a time in various locations in Frenchtown (oh yes, barking, howling, and on her knees begging…ummm…); we watched Alex bounce around the Lewis and Clark statue eight times.

Ah yes, prairie grass...
Dredging

We found Picasso's cafe for breakfast

More wandering

Neil wanted today’s entry to be simple, “we saw the arch.”

Alex spotted it first (he wins!).

The museum under the Arch is a creative timeline of the frontier with kid friendly museum replicas you can touch!

And, yeah! We went on a Mississippi boat cruise! Here is the flotsam at the dock.

What one-hour cruise? The action was inside - Alex and Eleni set up a fort so their parents would stop eating THEIR popcorn!

It was around this point that Neil and I began singing "the day the road trip died" to the tune of American Pie...

 

Under the Arch

As we left St. Louis, we saw signs for Memphis, Kansas City, Chicago, and there might as well have been one for New York. Just as crossing the Mississippi and heading west had been momentous, crossing back over the Mississippi and heading east was significant, too. We felt like we were truly heading home, although it didn’t help Eleni’s pleas of “I want the blue house! Guys! This taking too long!”

Our next goal was Route 66! Exciting in theory, but not as wonderful as we had planned. There are actually two routes to Route 66 and it took us a while to get the hang of it and, in so doing, we missed some of the stuff we wanted to see. Mother Jones' grave and such.

Very Disney "Cars" style...

We found out the next day that Paul McCartney was traveling on Route 66 on the same day and near where we were!

We had an amazing lunch here - cherry cheesecake and lemon pie! The Ariston has been open since 1924 and they were happy to give us free leaflets and magnets advertising Route 66. 

Here are the two signposts that marked the speed of change. The "Cars" movie is telling the sadness of the 1977 story.

So, where do you go next when you are traveling north in Illinois? Lincoln's home in Springfield, of course! We toured this place, too. 

As we left Springfield, we saw flags, "1908 Springfield Race Riot - 2008 A Year of Reconciliation"

Here is what is becoming Main Street USA. It's the outskirts replacing the heart of town...and you might as well be anywhere as they all look the same. This one is in Bloomington, IL. We didn't choose our motel well, as we were awakened twice in the night by knocks on our door. One was at 3AM and we're pretty sure that #1. they got the wrong door, and #2. whatever it was they were after, it wasn't legal. Not exactly giving us the confidence we needed for our big day planned in Chicago on Friday!