October 06, 2003

Road Trip - Day 2: St. Louis Gateway Arch

Today was full of surprises! First, we were surprised to find that the Ozarks go all the way across the state of Missouri. Second, we were surprised how l-o-n-g the drive from Springfield, Mo to St. Louis was! (Well, Joel wasn't surprised. But it sure did seem extra long to me!) Third, we were surprised by all the colors in the trees in the St. Louis area. I mean, we were just a few hours from home and already the trees there are showing definite signs of fall!

There were other surprises, too, but I'll get to those in a minute....

We started the day off slowly. We got up when we were ready--well, everyone else was ready to get up. I just got up because they made me. ;-) We had breakfast in the room while Joel went for a walk. He located the nearest Wal-Mart, so we made a list of things we needed and made a b-line as soon as we were dressed, packed, and checked-out of the Red Roof Inn.

By the time we finished our business at Wal-Mart it was almost noon, but there was no delaying Joel any longer. I took the driver's seat so he could read the read-aloud book to the kids. (I thought it was quite fascinating. It was the first few pages of the Abraham Lincoln Photobiography.)

A little later, as we entered what appeared to be some semblence of civilization (there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant!) we stopped for lunch. Joel, being in the hurry he is most always in, wanted to go through the drive-through. All I had to do was mention they had a buffet and that was enough to convince him to allow us to enjoy a sit-down lunch. After we ate, I helped Jenna with one of her reading assignments while Joel reorganized the car for the fourth time. (You try packing for a month-long road trip and see if you don't have space and organization issues!)

Anyway, we were back on the road again within the hour and on our way to St. Louis. The St. Louis area (going into the city) was quite pretty and charming--unlike the northern exit out of the city we took. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We went straight to the St. Louis Gateway Arch--which absolutely terrified Jenna! She was in full melodrama mode from the moment she saw it up close to the moment we stepped back on Tara Firma after the tour. The Arch, an impressive 600'+ high monument is nestled in a most beautiful city park on the Mississippi River. Once again, we were in for a surprise--we were surprised how much there was to see and do at the Arch! They have a museum there that one could spend quite a long time going through, plus there's a movie, and a gift shop. (Of course we hit the gift shop, made a quick sweep through the museum, and skipped the movie altogether.) We would've spent more time there except that the Arch closed at 6 p.m. and it was almost 5 by the time we arrived. (See what happens when we stop for a sit-down lunch!)

The ride up to the top of the Arch was quite interesting. We stepped into this small, round "capsule" that was totally enclosed. (Not only was it really close in there, but we had to bend over to get into it.) The doors were closed automatically and we were off on a ferris wheel-type ride, only we couldn't see anything but the 1,000-step stairs leading from top to bottom of the Arch. Jenna was still horrified, regardless of how we tried to calm her. But she was smiling in spite of her fear, so we knew she was okay. (The other surprise was how amazingly calm and fearless Zach was! He really is growing up!)

We spent a few minutes looking out over St. Louis and the Mississippi, we asked another tourist to take our picture, then we made our way back to the tiny capsule that would take us back down again.

By the time we got back to the car it was 6:00 p.m. and we decided, instead of spending the night in St. Louis, we would get a jump on our day tomorrow and head for Beardstown, our next stop on the trip. That's when we were in for our next surprise of the day....

Did you ever see National Lampoon's Vacation, the one where the Griswold's are driving across-country to Wally World? There was a scene in the movie where Clark falls asleep at the wheel in St. Louis and they end up in a really bad part of town and have to ask directions from people that appear to be of the "gangsta" type... I'll bet you know where I'm going with this if you saw the movie...! Well, Joel didn't fall asleep at the wheel, but the map we had could not have been more vague about how to get where we needed to go from where we were. Joel pulled out the GPS system boldly exclaiming, "We don't need a map. We have the GPS!" Well, at some point in Alton the GPS totally gave up on us. We had spent what seemed like an hour getting out of St. Louis and to the northern side of Alton---all of which, shall I say, was one seedy neighborhood after another!

At one point we were headed out into the country, the GPS was telling us we were getting farther away from our target, and we had run out of pavement when I finally convinced Joel to turn around and ask some guy grilling in his front yard how to find the highway. You should've seen the look on these folks' faces when we stopped in the middle of the road, in the dark, in our white over-stuffed minivan to ask directions! The guy had gone back in the house by the time we got turned around, but Joel being the person he is, walked right up to the front door and knocked.... Well, we weren't sure the guy even knew what he was talking about, but we offered up a quick prayer to the Ultimate GPS (!) and within minutes we were on the right road. (Funny how we didn't think about asking Him for directions sooner... I think we were too busy asking for protection!) ;-)

Anyway, we finally made it as far as Jacksonville, a decent-sized town in the middle of nowhere. By the time we pulled into town, it was almost 9:00 o'clock. Everyone was hungry, and even Socrates was getting antsy. So we stopped at Nic's for some pizza and spaghetti before tracking down a motel for the night. Needless to say we're all dawg tired (sorry, Socrates!). It didn't take long for the kids to fall asleep once they finally got horizontal.

Joel just finished his first radio interiew on the Online Tonight with David Lawrence program--all about our little month-long home schooling excursion. I think it went well. :-)

Anyway, tomorrow we are scheduled to visit the Simmert's in Beardstown, (some really great people who took over SafeHaven a couple of years ago for me), and then on to Champaign, IL. Joel wants to show the kids where he went to college, yada, yada, yada.

That's the schedule... Who knows what surprises will be in store for us tomorrow!