What goes up must come down

Well today was a busy busy busy day!

We started the day off at the Saint Louis Arch. If you know my father you will know he doesn't like lines so even though we weren't planning on jetting off too early, as soon as he saw the whites of my eyes I was urged to get ready so we could "get on the road." Mind you that was at 7am! Regardless we ended up at the base of the Arch just as it was opening for business. Let me tell you that pictures do not do it justice! It stands 630 feet above the ground and its just massive! You have to descend to an underground area which houses a musuem and a theater and some shops and you can buy a ticket to ride up the arch. If you know me then you know I am not so good with the whole "motion" thing...but Rollie promised it wasn't too fast so I decided "you only live once!" And its probably a good thing you only live once because I don't know if my mom would ever get back on the ride again!
When you get on the ride everyone is seperated into groups of 3-5 and your placed in what look like spacepods. They are these round little rooms with doors that close and they kind of function like a ferris wheel/elevator. Its a weird ride...it only takes about 5 minutes to get up...but it bangs a lot and sometimes jerks. Everytime it did that my poor mom would jump a little and grab at her seat. Poor mom...she isn't so good at the motion rides either at seems! Once your up there you can walk onto the middle of the Arch. Its unbelievable...you literally are looking down onto the Mississippi. And even though I think I saw about 10 different pieces of trash float by, there is just something so majestic about that huge river. I was kind of waiting for Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn to float on by!
Once we were done with the Arch we decided to hit the road and try and get through as much of Kansas as we could in hopes that we could get to Denver on Sunday. What can I say...Rollie doesn't like to dilly dally! And being the kind daughter that I am I decided to let my dad drive the whole way to Kansas...apparently me going 70 was too slow for him. (AND WE ALL KNOW I HAVE A LEAD FOOT!) The drive through Missouri wasn't so bad. We stopped a couple of times for coffee and to use the bano. On our second pit stop is when I encountered 2 very unique finds. The 1st being GAS FOR $1.89....YUP $1.89!!! I almost passed out! We immediately pulled in to gas up...along with the rest of the state of Missouri. We pumped next to a man who was wearing overalls and had dip in his mouth which he spit out regularly...ohhh how I love the sights. My 2nd find wasn't really a "find" but it made my day. As my mom was grabbing a snack we pulled into a different truck stop. As I was surveying the crowd my eyes settled on a cowboy...dressed up to the nines in his wranglers, boots, hat and vest made out of some unidentifiable material and complete with Tom Sellek sleezy mustache. He looked over at me as he was jumping out of his rusted over pickup truck and smiled. I think maybe because my mouth was hanging open and he thought I may be special. You just don't see many people in that kind of get-up where we live!
Alas we left Missouri behind and made our way into the Sunflower state...aka Kansas...and drive further and further into the Great Plains on I70. I thought I was going to be really tired of seeing flat but I was pleasantly surprised. Its really not flat. Kansas has these really pretty rolling hills, and even though its not sunflower season, you could almost imagine the fields a plenty. We passed field after field of wheat...and again started to feel like Bubba (wheat germ, wheaties, wheat grass etc) but I really didn't mind the scenary as much as I thought I would. As the day was winding down, and Carol was expressing her concern for snakes and bears being too close for comfort (and for the record we saw neither), we decided to stop for the day. So now I am writing to you in my hotel room in Abilene Kansas...which coincidently is not only home to the Dwight Eisenhour (sp?) musuem but also the Greyhound Hall of Fame (the dog not the bus company...and yes I AM serious!). Its a sweet little city with a decent size population (7500) and the people are really nice. We ate dinner at an old mansion called the Kirby house (I sent you the picture Kirby as a text message!) and poked around a deserted section of town called Old Abilene. It had original old buildings from when the railroad was being built here and an old railroad engine (Rollie was thrilled....Marge I think Greg would love it here!) It was a nice ending to a pretty decent day. Now I have to rest up, as Rollie informed me I am driving tomorrow, for my big drive to the Mile High City.

Mary's Record Keeping:

miles traveled: 1621

time zones crossed: 1 ( I am an hour behind y'all!)

number of arguments and disputes: lost count after 60

number of religious signs/crosses/bumper stickers: 54

number of "adult" stores: 12 (and 7 of them were in Missouri...where most of the religious material was...go figure!)

number of hours sleep I got before the Arch: 10 (hurray!)

number of McCain/Palin signs I spotted: 100ish (every farmer has one on their fence post)

number of Obama/Biden signs: 0...not kidding! (and Howell yes I voted and I voted for "O" and also NO on ques 1!)


Hope you guys are not bored to tears reading this. Wish you could all be here. Hugs to you all. Catch you all on the flip side
xo,
Mary the travel bug

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