Home at Last

Sunday, October 21, 2018

We made it home by 1:30 PM.  It was flurrying in Sugar Hill.
The temp in Sugar Hill when we left was 73°F,  it was 32°F when we arrived, and it was 42°F inside.
We were on the road for 32 days.
We visited 17 states.  
We drove 7,101 miles.
We slept in 17 different campgrounds, 4 motels, and 1 driveway!

Here are a few observations in no particular order:
We live in a big country.
We live in a beautiful country.
Our National Park Service does a great job preserving our natural and cultural resources!
Trucks and railroads are everywhere.
There is a lot of farmland in America.
There's a serious drought in the West.
We screwed the Indians.
Americans couldn't be friendlier, especially to fellow travelers and campers.
I'm thrilled to be home, ski season is coming, but I can't wait to do some more traveling.

The Long Road Home

Saturday, October 20, 2018

We were on the road by 7:15 AM...so we got to watch the sun rise, but I really hate driving in the dark.  That's the worst thing about fall...the loss of daylight.

We spent almost 12 hours in the van today, covering 676 miles, and finally stopping in Johnstown, New York.  We drove through hard rain, sleet, and hale. Pretty nerve racking for a while, but we'll be home early tomorrow afternoon.

Huntington, Indiana

Friday, October 19, 2018

We arrived in Huntington, Indiana on Thursday after a 395 mile drive from St. Louis.  We routed our trip through Huntington so that we could stop at Sportsmobile, the campervan conversion company, in order to have a window added to our vehicle.  

A week ago I discovered that my sister and her husband, who live in Detroit, were planning a camping vacation in southern Indiana for this weekend, so the four of us modified our schedules and arranged a reunion in Huntington.  

Huntington is the boyhood home of Dan Quayle.  He now lives in Arizona.  There's a Dan Quayle museum in town, but we skipped it.  

We dropped our van off at Sportsmobile at 8:00 AM, and met Wendy and Carl for breakfast, at Huntington's most popular diner, Nick's Kitchen.  

Amazingly our van was done by 10:00 AM, so the four of us spent the rest of the day exploring the area around Huntington, which includes a lot of farm land, and a number of state recreation areas created by dams along the Wabash River.

In a landmark decision on April 3, 1866, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conspiracy against the national government conviction of Huntington attorney Lambdin P. Milligan (1812-1899). This decision, rising out of the Civil War, set a precedent which protects civilians from being tried in military courts, even in time of war, if the civil courts are open and functioning. (From a plaque in front of the Huntington County Courthouse)

 a sign worthy of Route 66

corn being transferred from the harvester to a truck which will take it to an elevator

After a delicious dinner at the Rusty Dog Irish Pub, we said our good-byes.  Tomorrow, Wendy and Carl head south and we head east.  We have a 900 drive to Sugar Hill, so the only sightseeing for us will be along the interstates.

Enjoying the Best of St. Louis

Wednesday, October 16, 2018

The statue of Saint Louis, in front of the city's art museum which was built as part of the 1904 World's Fair.  There's actually some controversy about which Louis was Saint Louis.  Was it Louis IX, Louis XIV, or Louis XV?

Finally a sunny & warm day from start to finish!

We started our day with a delicious breakfast at Cafe Osage, a wonderful eclectic restaurant about 20 blocks from the Mississippi. Fully stuffed, we headed further downtown to the National Blues Museum which opened in 2016.  The museum does a great job explaining how the blues was born on the plantations of the South, and progressed to the Delta, St. Louis and Chicago forms that we know today.  The bands of the British Invasion were given due credit for introducing the blues to a wider, white audience in the 1960's  The museum is filled with photos and videos, as wells as series of interactive stations where you can write and make your own blues recording.  We loved it and would recommend it to anyone who loves rock n roll.

A Gibson ES-335, the preferred electric guitar from many bluesmen...this one belonged to Chuck Berry

Leaving the Blues Museum we drove over to nearby Busch Stadium.  Unlike Fenway, it's very quiet there now, but I had to stop by the official Cardinal store to pick up a new hat.

Our next stop was the art museum.  How fortunate I was as a teenager to be able to visit this museum anytime I wished.  Admission was, and still is, free!  Who needs Paris when you can see these masters?

Rodin

Degas

 Renoir

 Monet

 Van Gogh

Leaving the art museum around 3 pm, we headed for the University City section of St. Louis, now known as The Loop, where we had a wonderful barbecue lunch/dinner at Salt & Smoke, another one of our favorite places to eat, and similar to yesterday, we stopped at Ted Drewes for a frozen custard before retiring to our campground.

Joplin to St. Louis

October 16, 2018

Our first morning in Missouri was a chilly one, 33°F outside the van and only 41°F inside.  If we didn't have to get out of our sleepy bags we'd be fine, but of course nature always calls.  We did a lot less sightseeing and a lot more driving today, covering 350 miles before we reached our campsite at Babler State Park, just outside St. Louis.  

 Another motel that has a garage for every room!

The Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage, Mo.  Built in  1866.   Joplin was a very wealthy town in the 19th century due to the thriving mining industry at that time.  Sadly, mining has tapered off, but the town has done a good job preserving many of its buildings.  

We had breakfast just across the street.

After breakfast we spent a few hours visiting the Wilson Creek National Battlefield.  There were only two states that witnessed more battle during the Civil War than Missouri.   Although slavery was allowed in Missouri, it did not secede from the Union.  The battle at Wilson Creek, which took place in August, 1861, was the fist in the state.  2500 died in a battle that lasted only a few hours.  Although the Union army sustained many more casualties than the Confederacy, the North considered it a victory since they prevented the South from taking Springfield, a transportation center for southern Missouri.

The Ray family home on whose cornfields the battle took place.  The family hid in the root cellar while the battle raged, and then the Confederates seized their home and turned it into their field hospital.

Bud's High Performance Tires and Wheels

The Stooges are popular on Route 66

Springfield mural

 You won't see these signs on the roofs or sides of barns like you used to, but the billboards are still everywhere!  I'm still hoping to find a barn with a "Mall Pouch Tobacco" sign, so far not one!

This town was named after the favorite drink of the railroad workers that settle this area.

We arrived at Charlie Gitto's Italian restaurant in St. Louis at 5:45 PM.  We had a fabulous dinner there a year ago, so we couldn't resist going back, and we were not disappointed.  We even had the same restaurant which was incredibly busy for a Tuesday night, every table was taken when we left.

On our way to our campground at Babler State Park we stopped for some frozen custard at Ted Drewes'.  Another must anytime we're in St. Louis. We arrived at the campground around 8:30 PM, happy we had a reservation.

Leaving Oklahoma, into Kansas briefly, and stopping in the Show Me State

October 15, 2018

Another day traveling back in time.  We drove about 250 miles today, mostly following Route 66 from Oklahoma City to Carthage, Missouri, which is just east of Joplin.  In between Oklahoma and Missouri, we were in Kansas for just 13 miles.

Just a few of the 600 different kinds of soda pop available at "Pops", a gas station/soda store in Arcadia, OK

 A round barn in Arcadia, OK

Originally a Seaba Gas station in Warwick, OK, that opened in the 30's, now a motorcycle museum.

Gravity flow gas pumps from the 1930's

Clanton's, a diner in Vinita, OK, run by the same family since 1927.  Both "Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives" and "Bizarre Foods" filmed episodes here.  I had the chicken fried steak, Joni was more cautious and just had fried chicken.  Both were exemplary!

Some of our fellow diners at Clantons.

The very first Sears Catalog house built in America.  How ironic that we saw this house on the day that Sears declared bankruptcy.

Miami, OK:  The Coleman Theatre, built in 1929 when this town was booming.  During the heyday of Vaudeville, this theatre hosted acts from the Three Stooges to Will Rogers.

A Conoco station in Commerce, OK, the hometown of Mickey Mantle

 A Marathon gas station, also in Commerce.  It's now an ice cream shop.

Growing up in New Jersey in the 1950's the Yankees were my favorite team, and Mickey Mantle was the first sports hero that I idolized.  We moved to St. Louis when I was 7.  My parents returned to NJ from a house hunting trip to St. Louis and gave me an autographed photo of Stan Musial, whose restaurant was next to my Dad's new office.  I had no idea who he was, but I soon learned.

 Mickey's childhood home.

The Mantle's barn...see  the plaque below.

Another inspiration for the vehicles in Pixar's film Cars