Thursday, April 29th - St. Louis to Lebanon MO
We were out late last night with my cousin Ann and her family; by the time I got back to the hotel to build that page it was 10:30p so I didn't get much sleep last night. This morning we'd been invited to breakfast by my cousin Dave and his wife Susan; we were to meet at the Ritz-Carlton at 8:30am. The alarm went off at 7....
To add to the stress, each of our GPS units had different coordinates for the Ritz-Carlton -- and some of the streets were under construction. But, with all that, we arrived only a few minutes late. We had a terrific breakfast with the rest of my St. Louis-based family.
During breakfast we learned that Dave had recently acquired an Aston-Martin DB7 Vantage. He asked if we'd like to stop by their house to see it. Lessee... Car nuts, Aston-Martin..... We jumped at the chance!
We followed Dave and Susan to their beautiful home and Susan brought out the DB7. Truthfully I've never seen a more beautiful paint color on a car. It's sort of between Teal Blue and Green (depending on the lighting). What a car!
We bid them a thankful farewell and headed off for our first tourist event for the day: The St. Louis Gateway Arch:
This 630-feet-high structure was designed by famous designer Eero Saarinen and it was built nearly forty years ago. None of us had visited it, let alone gone "up" in it. Yes, you can ride to the top and look out over St. Louis -- but we don't really recommend doing that. Why?
It's $8/person to take the "tram" to the top and back. That's not the bad part; that's reasonable. But...
You are placed in a tiny enclosure. It's a semi-sphere that has five stools in it and measures about 5.5' by 5.5' by 4'. That's a only 121 cubic feet and there were five adults occupying it. If you are taller then 5'9" you have to bend over for the ride. It's a good thing that we knew each other well (except for Martha the science teacher from Austin who occupied the fifth stool in our "pod") because there was person-to-person contact all up and down each side of each person.
They seal you into this thing and send you up to the top of the Arch. You are five compressed people and there seemed to be no ventilation (though I'm sure there was). I, for one, was sweating -- and it wasn't even warm outside. If you're the least bit claustrophobic, don't do this!
We reached the top in three minutes or so. There, you can look out through 6"x18" slots on either side of the arch. These slots are heavy plexiglas. The view was nice if you could properly align yourself to see through them:
The tram consists of eight "pods" with five people each and they seemed to restrict us to two tramloads (about 80 people) at the top of the arch at one time.
A park ranger took our picture (we look LOTS happier than we felt):
We hurried back down after about ten minutes. Net? Don't bother doing this!
And, of course, it delayed getting back on Route 66 by a couple of hours all told.
Back in the cars and off to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in South St. Louis (we spent all of today in Missouri so I'll stop adding ", MO" to every town):
Everyone says this is a must-stop on Route 66 and we heartily agree! After our little egg-shaped sweatbox in the Arch (can you tell we didn't enjoy that all that much?) the frozen custard was soooooo welcome. The stuff comes only in vanilla but they can dress it up in dozens of delightful ways. We loved it!
Off down the road to (eventually) Lebanon. We visited or stopped for a photo at just about every Route 66 attraction we passed. This is the Red Cedar Inn in Pacific (it was closed):
This is Monroe's Route 66 Diner (it was closed and may have been for months)
This is the Tri-County Truck Stop Restaurant in Villa Ridge. Years ago (when it was named the Diamond) it was the largest restaurant on all of Route 66. It was open but we were still full of custard so we motored on.
Here's the Sunset Motel. This is a very traditional "tourist court"-style motel right on the roadside.
A bit farther down the road we saw several wigwams that we weren't expecting. This is apparently a new venture by a couple. One wigwam is their curio shop and the other is their office. They have tons of Native American things from the Plains Indian cultures.
We wanted to see the Antique Toy Museum and the Jesse James Wax Museum but they were both closed; another chap who happened by (in this black pickup) said he'd been visiting these two shops for three years and had never found either one of them open! The pictures I took through the front window of the Toy Museum.
Next we drove to Meramec Caverns in Stanton; we didn't have time (nor inclination for the hour and a half tour) and we were still dressed from our nice breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton. This is a very nice facility and even includes a riverboat ride (closed until May/June)
On the way back out of the Cavern road we passed and stopped to photograph the Riverside Reptile Ranch (we didn't go inside :)
And a bit farther down the road we photographed but didn't take the time to visit a shop that had "Wood Sculptures" over the door along with signs for "Creative Chainsaw" and "Rustic Signs". Perhaps one of those is the name of the place:
This restaurant (The Missouri Hick) was a surprise to us as it wasn't in any of our books. Looked like a good place to eat but we only stopped for photos (that frozen custard sticking to our bones, y'know..).
It was right next to the very charming and neat Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba.
Cuba, Missouri turned out to be a gem of a town:
In addition to having the Wagon Wheel Motel in town, nearly every downtown building has a painted mural on the wall. We blew through town, noticed how nice they looked, and turned around and came back to photograph them:
Cuba also boasts the Route 66 Cafe but it closes each day at 2pm so we were too late.
Next we stopped to visit the Route 66 Motors and Nostalgia Gift Shop in Rolla:
If you're into die-cast cars, Wayne Bales has hundreds of them for sale. Rolla is the home town of good friend Cindy Goldstein (then Cindy Frank) and she asked us to be sure to stop in Rolla and ask about her. She said that people had stories. Wayne thinks his daughter may have known Cindy but he had no stories to share. Probably for the best...
By this time my sleep-deprivation situation had caught up with me so we let Buzz and Jackie continue on and we boogied over to I-44 and headed for our Lebanon overnight spot, the (deservedly) famous Munger Moss Motel:
We were met at the door by one of the owners, the delightful Ramona Lehman:
She gave us both a great big second-hand hug from Buzz and Jackie's friends Bill and Linda McKenzie from Tampa. At each hotel (so far) there's been a clever fax waiting for us from Bill and Linda. This time, though, no fax but a hug from Ramona -- an all-around better deal IMHO!
Buzz and Jackie continued on and saw a gigantic frog on a hill above the road. Turns out there's some kind of a "frog festival" in the area on May 1-2; thankfully, we'll be long gone!
The hungry bug bit so they stopped at a local catfish-ery; how did they know?
Motored on down the road on some "not so nice" pavement over this old bridge:
They drove in about 8:30pm and we walked across the street to the bowling alley:
.. for a (reputed) excellent pizza. And it WAS!
Another long day, lots of stops -- and much, much more to come...
Watch for more tomorrow, Day #4 on the Mother Road!
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