Ohio to Missouri

First off, props go out to Clayton 101.5 in Ohio for being the best radio station we found while on the road. Your taste is eclectic and off the beaten path of usual music which for us musicians is a welcome palette cleanser. Thank you for making the trip aurally interesting.

Ohio, from all outward appearances is composed of wide swaths of farmland interspersed with industrial city. Ohio is the home of James’ dad, Skyline Chili (which I’ve heard that I need to try their Chili 5 way) and I got to see a Tim Horton’s here! Why is that a big deal? Well, as some of you may know I am a huge Kevin Smith fan and he in turn is a huge Canadian fan and one of their biggest things is Tim Horton’s, sort of the north’s response to Dunkin Donuts.  

This load we delivered to DuPont was an odd load that was one pallet, 700 pounds of paint. It left James and the lumper (loading guy for the customer) scratching their heads. Sometimes you just don’t ask why. The next load happened at Con Agra Foods, home of the SlimJim, my brother’s favorite snack.

We waited and waited, only to find out that it was going to take at least 3 hours to get our load ready because they had to MAKE it first. Good to know it’s fresh. So we left, but not before reporting at the guard shack to let the guy know we would come back in the morning. James was so nice, walking to the shack and chatting the guy up, but on his way out, without remotely being aware, he came face first with this:

And now he looks like this:

I can hear certain friends of mine laughing right now. :P

Not to worry, other than it looking like eye liner and hurting when he tries to wink, he's ok. It did bend his glasses a bit but thankfully he has a spare set. 

The night was spent at this wonderful TA, which had not one, or two, but THREE different restaurants in it. But I will save my commentary on truck stops for their own post. In the morning, the load was got picked up with ease (no running head first into things) and you know what we’ve got now? 38,000 pounds of pepperoni pizza. Yum.  It is all going to Carthage, Missouri by way of St. Louis!  

Oh St. Louis! You look like the most crowded city I have ever seen. The arch was beautiful and you could see it from 10 miles away. The roads were extremely patched and traffic was tight. It’s obvious that the city has overgrown itself by being the gateway to the west. After passing through which was only a slightly harrowing drive the rest seemed to run pretty smooth. The lay of the land gets more and more hilly as you drive, and signs of the old Route 66 trail are seen on the sides of the road. Deserted signs leading to long gone attractions in almost abandoned towns littered the road a bit, but there were a few attractions that I could tell were still kicking. The main one was the Meramec Caverns in Stanton, MO. Here's their website (by the way, I tried to get a picture of the barn on this front page but had a hard time at 60mph!)

http://www.americascave.com/

 I have to hand it to them, they advertised for this place in the old fashioned way, posting boards every couple of miles down the road. It was hilarious because the signs increased within 6 miles of the exit promising everything from zip lines, to tours every half hour and a motel to boot! One of the nearby exhibits was the Jesse James wax museum (which we noticed is closed down) and the toy museum (likewise also closed) but the caverns have something that keep people coming back. One day I hope to visit. 

Other than the obvious increase in hills, the main thing that made the drive challenging was the weather. Even though there was a tornado warning out, what we got hit with was powerful winds, the kind that even made the steady truckers a little shifty on their feet. As a footnote, one of the funniest things I've seen to date has been watching a smart car try to stay on the road in these winds. They weaved worse than any drunk person and I kept waiting for a strong gust to knock them entirely off the road. So word to the wise, if you're going through the Midwest, do NOT drive a smart car.

Back to the drive. We finally had to make a fuel stop which took us to this hillside truck stop unlike anything I've ever seen. Platforms of relatively flat land seemed to have been cut out of this hill to make the whole thing work and there was a long set of stairs you had to take just to get in the station. I kept noticing signs for land for sale and I can't imagine someone wanting to deal with building something here and living here. Upside is the gas is cheaper than I've seen (unleaded reg. is 3.39 here). The funny thing was trying to walk a straight line from the truck to the station and back. On the way there the wind helped me pick up my step and on the way back I had to hold on to my hat and side walk through the wind which ended with me laughing all the way to the truck (if the wind is like this here, what's it going to be like further west?!). Thankfully we shut down at a Road Ranger which is another form of Pilot that's nestled in the hills and provides some measure of shelter from the elements.

Tomorrow we set off for Carthage! To those of you who love lots of pictures my next post will include all the odds and ends things I've been able to capture so far!