Day 3 - The Road Trip Begins...

Woke up after a fitful night’s sleep courtesy of the ridiculous amount of chicken fajita I had last night. I made sure I ate most of the chicken which had expired for my eating pleasure; there was then some discussion about some university that had devised a gadget that could measure the “pain” felt by plants when they get cut up, so I guiltily made a fist of eating those too. That was a mistake.

A quick look of the map always has some interesting names such as Fruitland to the north, and then I noticed Riverside to its west. No! I’d completely forgotten about this place yesterday: The Future Birthplace of James T Kirk. I’d come all this way and missed it. Drat. I wonder what Curryville is like; hot?

We go into Mount Pleasant for breakfast and a very pleasant place it was too with a “historical square” replete with rusting traction engine. We have breakfast in the very classy de Brito bistro. It was superb and goes straight to the top of my all-time Plains best breakfast list. I’m even confident enough to ask for a cup of tea and they pretty much get that right. The guy who owns it is from Portugal; turns out he’s there through marriage.

After some debate we head south with the Mississippi directly to our east. “Target Area” for today is St. Louis where we’ll go and visit the famous Gateway Arch. A curious coincidence:  the weather in San Francisco comes up in conversation and like a rapier I quote Mark Twain (perhaps not verbatim) – “the worst winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco”. Halfway to St. Louis I notice the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. As it’s right on our path it might be worth a visit.

After an unusual one state chase through Iowa yesterday we cross the border into Missouri adding a new state my “US States Visited” list. I don’t think it’ll be the last on this trip. As we cross the border I’m stunned to see every shop and warehouse dedicated to the sale of fireworks. “Must be illegal in Iowa” says Glenn.

We arrive at Hannibal, home to the Mark Twain museum and I pay my $11 plus $1 towards their restoration fund. The museum was quite evocative of childhood, reading about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. They’ve got Huck’s house, Becky Thatcher’s house the famous picket fence that Tom got whitewashed; basically all the characters were represented. The fictional characters. Hang on, all these houses were “inspired by”…but finally we get to Mark Twain’s house which is a real house where Mark Twain really lived. Except he was called Sam Clemens then. Still, it was heaps better than the fake Boot Hill at Dodge City. Onward to St. Louis and the rain has stopped.

We arrive at St. Louis and walk down to the Gateway Arch. Wow! This thing is much bigger than I thought, 67 stories of glinting stainless steel and concrete, the gateway to the west and a celebration of the expansion of America as travellers stopped off at St. Louis on their way to a new life. Designed in the 1940’s, construction started in 1962 and tells you everything you need to know about the USA’s golden era - the 1960’s where anything and everything was possible culminating in the moon landings of July 1969. It's a really beautiful piece of work.

The arch is a hugely impressive structure, and after some queuing we were on our way up. Fortunately the 1200 odd steps were complemented by a retrofitted shuttle comprising incredibly claustrophobic 5 seat pods. After 4 minutes you get to the top and get out to look at the view through narrow windows. Unsurprisingly the views are spectacular with downtown St. Louis on one side and the Mississippi on the other. Plenty of pictures were taken and I check my mobile phone – full signal – so I call home for a “guess where I am” moment.  It’s only 3 minutes on the way down and we’re soon crossing the Mississippi into Illinois. I’ve been to Chicago O’Hare but that doesn’t count so I’m officially adding this as a new state. We’re booked into the Super 8 at Evansville North. That’s in Indiana! Indi-bloody-ana! And we could be chasing in Kentucky tomorrow! I brought 3 maps with me covering Texas to the Canadian border and we’re now right off the page.  Boy, this is a grade A road trip.

Day 3 -Total Miles 419