Thursday (I think) - It's really bad when you are looking at the Cracker Barrel menu trying to figure out if you should be reading the Tuesday special or Wednesday special -- that was us last night.
Although we had another parking lot sweeper episode last night (we are now checking out the Walmart parking lots as we pass them to see if they are clean), we got up on time, had breakfast at Stacy's Restaurant which was recommended by the helpful lady at the laundromat, and were on the road by 7:15. We beat the sun, but it greeted us very shortly, in full blast.
Our visors didn't quite get it yet, and even our clip-on sunglasses only helped a little. So Joe had to sit up a little straighter for the visor to come into play.
I started giving him hundred-mile treats yesterday -- when we reached a 100-mile marker (multiples), he would get 3 cherry sour candies. We stopped at mile marker 298 last night so he missed out on his last one yesterday, and wasn't ready first thing this morning, so he finally got his treat somewhere past Topeka.
They messed us up, from Topeka to Kansas City with a toll road, and they changed the mile marker numbers, so he probably was a little passed his 100 mile treat, but we are back on track now. But unless I buy another bag of candy, I'm going to have to parcel them out just one or two at a time. We have more hundreds than I have enough candy for at the 3-at-a-time rate.
We went through Topeka and I waved at Mark Dillon's parents, as requested.
We hit Kansas City, Kansas about 9:00 and buzzed right through there, although the freeway makes lots of jogs through that city, and the city itself was really smoggy - it did not look very appealing.
We crossed the Kansas River, but I missed the Missouri River, I must have been typing. We crossed the Missouri state line at 9:20 (which I also missed) and started across that state. We finally made a fuel stop at Higgingsville and I replenished Joe's 100-mile treats so we should be able to continue on.
And sure enough, it wasn't long before he had logged another 100.
We began to come into the outskirts of St. Louis about 1:00 and Joe immediately started watching for signs of a White Castle. We took the 370 bypass, to the 270 bypass, and I found a couple in my Next Exit book, so we found his White Castle and made our lunch stop.
I think we crossed three arms of the Mississippi River, or two plus a canal, going across on the 270. We think this may be beyond where the barges run.
Once across the river, we took the 255 south to I-64, then started working our way across Illinois. We could see the Arch and St. Louis skyscrapers in the distance. We decided to spend the night in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, at the Archway RV Park, a very nice little campground about a mile off the interstate, where it inte3rsects with I-57. We have full hook-ups here (I didn't even ask about a laundromat after last night's fiasco, and I have my laundry done now, anyway), and can go in tomorrow from here with empty tanks and a full tank of water. We are about 100 miles from Vincennes so that should be an easy run in the morning, thanks to Joe's marathon driving. But today we were off the road by 4:15, and he ONLY drove 455 miles today. And we only bought 85 gallons of gas today. No wildlife today, but they are really working the fields in southern Illinois -- the combines are really stirring up the dust in the bean fields, it must be really dry here.
We are really looking forward to arriving in Vincennes tomorrow and getting this part of the journey behind us. It's been a trip!
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