Missour-ee or Missour-uh?

Day Four, Monday, August 22, 2011

We woke up to another lovely day and, as we promised ourselves the night before, we managed to get down to the lobby to eat some breakfast. The food was mediocre but filling, and after fueling up both ourselves and our vehicle we were off around 10:30 in the morning. It took a whole five minutes to get to Missouri from our hotel, and our first stop was the Saint Louis Arch, which, interestingly enough, you can see pretty well from Illinois.

After standing in awe of the arch for a few minutes, we headed to a neighborhood of Saint Louis known as "The Loop". It was a pretty cool area, featuring a comic shop, a great indie book store, a record shop, and a lot of great food. We spent a little over an hour touring around and looking at everything. Of particular note was the "Planet Walk," which was a to-scale model of the solar system. We managed to find everything up to Uranus, but we didn't really want to walk to Neptune's plaque.

Angry Birds Shooting Gallery

Chuck Berry was a giant

Dana in her Heaven

Planet Walk

Before leaving The Loop, we headed to a sandwich shop called Snarf's to get some food for the road, and then headed to our final Saint Louis stop: a sculpture park. It was full of some great and creative stuff, all strewn out in a beautiful little park area.

Giant Eyeball

Pickin' that nose

After all that, we finally parted from Saint Louis, heading southwest toward Tulsa. This was the longest continuous part of the trek, so it was nice to get it out of the way early. Our next stop was in Marshfield, Missouri. In 1889, this town produced a man named Edwin Hubble, who would grow up to prove the existence of other galaxies in the universe, and for whom the Space Telescope is named. To honor their native son, Marshfield has a model of the Hubble Telescope sitting in front of a building. It's pretty cool to see!

We continued to the southwest, racing toward the Missouri-Oklahoma border. It was already late afternoon and we had a couple stops left to go. Our next stop was the American Legion in Springfield, which had a particularly interesting sight. Where Moorestown, NJ has a ship jutting from the ground, the American Legion features the sail of a submarine jutting from the ground. The sub is SSN-661, the USS Lapin, which was decommissioned in 1992.

After Springfield, we headed down I-44 toward Oklahoma, only to take Exit 1 and head up in the direction of Kansas. We had a single stop in Kansas, mostly just for the novelty of adding another state to our trip, but also because the stop was fairly interesting in its own right.

The Rainbow Bridge is the last of the Marsh Arch Bridges on Route 66. There were hundreds of these single-span bridges built in the early twentieth century, but the vast majority were torn down. Only a few remain, most preserved due to being registered as historically important. By the way, we had been driving on Route 66 the majority of the day - well, what used to be Route 66. In most of Missouri, the historical highway had been redesignated and repaved as I-44.

Anyway, we canceled last stop due to the fact that the sun was going down - it was a gigantic cartoon blue whale that you could walk through. Oh well, bed feels just as good. Dana and I hit up Waffle House for dinner and planned on relaxing the rest of the evening. Another great day!

States: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Missouri (again, briefly), Oklahoma

Cities: Saint Louis

Next stop, Amarillo!

PS: Oh, and tomorrow!

• No shortage of gas stations
• The next best thing to Cadillacs is obviously VW Bugs
• STEAKZ
• Some girl named Lauren guest stars

Fight On, Dear Old Muncie!

Day Three, Sunday, August 21, 2011

After yesterday's successes, we had some high hopes for today. We managed to get a fantastic night's sleep thanks to Jason's wonderful hospitality (thanks again for accommodating us!) and woke up a little before ten to start getting ready. I had come up with the itinerary for the day just as I had the day prior, though Jason suggested we make a small detour to see the Moraine GM Plant. The plant had closed in 2008 and thus had been abandoned for about three years. Great place for some post-apocalyptic, hellscape photography!

It's a pretty eerie place, and kind of shows how quickly the traces of civilization can start to disappear. Anyway, we moved on, and fairly quickly we were in Indiana, hooray!

Our next stop for the day was just over the border in Indiana - our second Madonna of the Trail in Richmond, IN. Just like the Ohio one, it was situated near a golf course, though this one was considerably easier to find. This statue looked a lot more pristine than the last.

Like the other Madonna we saw (and the one we'd see later), this one stands near Route 40, surveying what was once known as the National Highway. The construction of the national highway was okayed by President Thomas Jefferson in 1806. The highway eventually became designated as part of US Highway 40, and several statues were erected to honor the historical context of the original road - to create a safer and speedier gateway to the west coast for settlers.

Next up was a little less historically-interesting monument. After driving a bit further down the highway, we pulled off to observe, what else, another giant thing:

Not much else to say, really. Giant sneaker, on the side of the road, in front of a seemingly unrelated motel. Yep. Moving on!

Once we reached Indianapolis, the weather had shifted from sunny and pleasant to downpour. Fortunately, we managed to reach our lunch destination prior to the real stuff rolling through. Dana had picked out a place called Yats known for its delicious cajun food - sounded absolutely delicious after not eating anything all morning.

It was sunny just a minute ago...

Quirky eatery

Chicken Chorizo, delicious

Dana got the chili served over rice

It was an extremely good lunch and pretty cheap too! The rain had subsided by the time we got done with our meals, so we headed down the street to find the Indianapolis Art Center. It was a pretty neat place, with sculptures scattered around the grounds and a nice little park setting. The crown jewel - the thing we came to see, anyway - was the "twisted house":

After leaving Indianapolis, we were in for a long drive - about three hours until our next destination. So we both hunkered down for the long ride - I got comfortable and Dana got really comfortable and promptly took a nap in the car. While she slept, we passed into the next state in our path - Illinois.

Much of the time, we kept the radio in the "scan" mode, since most of the time the radio stations were fleeting at best. Maybe three of the twenty or so frequencies we'd come across time and time again were Christian stations with ministers and priests ranting and screaming about something. Oh how appropriate this ended up being.

Yup, that little speck at the base is me

That's right, Illinois has what's claimed to be the largest cross in the world. There is apparently a larger one somewhere in Florida, but they still call this one the "largest". Oh well. All I know is that it was huge (about two hundred feet tall) and we couldn't stop saying "Baby Jesus" in Jeremy Clarkson's accent over and over.

We had two stops left, and the bulk of the driving was over. The sun was hanging low in the sky and turning a nice vivid orange as we came across the last two sites in the wrong order! We encountered this fellow on the side of the road.

A giant metal dragon that, rumor had it, breathes fire! We went to the nearby liquor store and bought a couple tokens to put into the slot, $1 per shot, this better be good! Dana had her camera at the ready to take a video of the big steel beast shooting out propane-powered flames, but the only thing that happened upon insertion of the token was a sparking sound. I put in the other token. Nothing. Oh no, maybe he needs more fuel? Either way, we enjoyed Mr. Dragon for what he was and moved on without making much of a fuss about him being broken.

The final stop was similar to our first planned of the day: another Madonna. This one was in Vandalia, Indiana, the western terminus of the original National Highway. We found her on the side of Highway 40 as it moved through the town, complete with some convenient parking spaces right next to her. Easiest Madonna to find yet!

In doing a little more research on these monuments, there are apparently twelve of them in total, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Hopefully we'll be seeing a couple more on the way out west!

After the final stop for the day, we headed to our hotel, the Hampton Inn and Suites in Collinsville, Illinois, just outside of Saint Louis. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were upgraded to a suite room with a jacuzzi, which we enjoyed thoroughly!

States: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois

Cities: Indianapolis

Coming up tomorrow...

• A whale of a good time
• Eyes on the prize
• Some confused submariners
• A fake telescope

See you in Tulsa!

Round on the Ends and High in the Middle

Saturday, August 20, 2011

As Dana mentioned this morning: What's round on the ends and high in the middle?

The answer is, of course, Ohio! We woke up in West Virginia after my alarm failing to go off, causing us to miss the complimentary breakfast. Either way, we got ready and were on our way by about 11:30.

Our Hotel Room

Big things happening in Weirton!

Our first destination was quite a ways down the road, and the first of many giant things along our route - a giant golf ball. After stopping at the nearby Best Buy and purchasing a car charger and (non-working) cassette adapter for the car, we headed to the aforementioned golf ball on the side of the road. Some lady looked at me funny when I was posing next to it, but doesn't she understand that novelty is to be enjoyed?!

Don't I look excited?

Next, we headed into Columbus, home of Ohio State University. Our destination for lunch was the North Market of Columbus, a nifty little market not unlike the Reading Terminal back home. Dana had planned for us to eat at a place called Kitchen Little. I had a bison burger with rice on the side and Dana got chicken with a side of collard greens and duck-fat-fried potatoes, and both were absolutely delicious. For dessert, we got ice cream at what turned out to be one of the top five ice cream parlors in the country according to Yelp, Jeni's. Obviously, it was also great.

Bison Burger, though you can't see much burger

North Market

Kitchen Little

The ice cream place was so good, even Finn and Princess Bubblegum wanted some!

Dana's flavors were an interesting mix of salted caramel and a flavor called Queen's City Cayenne, which features cayenne peppers, kind of an odd addition to ice cream. She said it was amazing, however, so maybe next time we come through I'll have to get some of my own. I got lavender wildberry, which was also pretty amazing.

Anyway, we soldiered onward to our next landmark, and it was a strange one. I didn't really realize how extensive it was until we saw it - a field of giant concrete corn cobs sticking out of the ground. I thought there might be a dozen or so, but it turned out there were around a hundred of the things, along with some plaques that told of the important history of corn and its cultivation in Ohio.

Corns

Dana got a little hungry

I LOVE CORN

Next up was Springfield, Ohio, which contained our last two sights for the day. First, there was the Hartman Rock Garden, which was basically a back yard of a house that contained a ton of rock sculptures. There was a family there, and the older woman explained to us that it was her father, Ben Hartman, who built all the sculptures in the 1930s. He died in 1944, but the house has been passed to the Kohler Foundation, who has made sure that the garden is kept in good condition. The garden consists of dozens of sculptures of buildings and scenes, most right out of real life - some depict men going to war, others a serene street with houses and a shop. Most impressive is probably the castle in the back.

Dana and the Castle

The Rock Garden contains more than a quarter of a million stones and has been standing for over seventy years. The garden is open from dawn until dusk every day and is free to enter, but gladly takes donations. Oh, and we have no idea if Dana's related to the creator - but as Ben's son-in-law said when we were talking about that issue, "I don't remember there being any red-headed Hartmans!" The mystery remains.

Our final stop for the day was a little more tricky to find. We went to the address reported on roadsideamerica.com, but our target, the first Madonna of the Trail of the trip, was nowhere to be found. After a little more searching and a small hike, we were able to find her: standing watch on the side of US 40 at the edge of a park.

Ohio's Madonna of the Trail

As can be gleaned from the above plaque, the Madonnas were erected as a tribute to the pioneer mothers of the westward expansion. They were all built along the National Old Trails Road, the first national highway. We'll be seeing quite a few of them along our trek, with two showing up in tomorrow's travels for Indiana and Illinois!

Anyway, after our driving was done for the day, we pulled in to greet Jason at his apartment. We grabbed some Chinese and Japanese food for dinner and sat around watching TV for awhile. Pretty soon we'll grab some sleep and do it all over again!

States visited: West Virginia and Ohio

Major cities traversed: Columbus, OH and Dayton, OH

Tomorrow we'll see a giant shoe, a fire breathing dragon, and some pretty ladies! See you in Saint Louis!

Soggy Bottom Boys

Day One, Friday, August 19, 2011

Welcome to day one of the cross-country road trip! We kicked off right around 5:30pm after I got done with work and we loaded up the car. We were in a bit more of a hurry than we'd thought thanks to the looming storms on the horizon - of course, carrying stuff out to the car would have been miserable in the downpour.

It ended up being a fairly uneventful drive. As we drove through Philadelphia, we ran into a couple big storms, but they cleared up by the time we drove through the middle of the state. Considering there isn't much to see in Central PA and the fact that it was night most of the drive, we didn't really miss much. Our only stop was at a rest area about halfway through our drive where we devoured some Burger King, used the restrooms, and moved on. We arrived at the hotel just before one in the morning, checked in and promptly hit the hay.

Our trip today spanned about 350 miles, of which 250 of them were on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 76. Including stops, our trip took just over seven hours. Large cities we drove through included Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. We touched New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia today.

Anyway, a preview of tomorrow:

• A giant golf ball
• Giant ears of corn
• Giant mortarboard
• A rock garden named after Dana
• Our first Madonna of the Trail
• JASON

See you then.

PS: Oh! Additionally, I'm going to see if I can get photos of all fifty states' license plates on the way out west. Since it was nighttime, I started slow, grabbing New York while I still could. One down, forty-nine to go.