One of the best places to watch Fall splendor is a drive on the Great River Road hugging the Mississippi starting from Alton all the way till Pere Marquette State Park. The drive is really exceptional if it happens to be a Peak Fall color weekend as was this last week end. [View Full Entry]

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The rush of life often leaves me wondering, "Why is it that I fill my schedule up to the brim? Why do I stay too busy to enjoy this wonderful creation?" Words cannot convey the much needed serenity you experience while traveling down Route 66. For me, it's the ultimate disconnect from the rest of the world. The moment we pulled onto the "Mother Road" just outside of the Chicago hustle, I was instantly taken back to a time before my own existence. From 40s gas stations, to car hops and diners, to Burma Shave signs, it's everything I've ever heard [View Full Entry]

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Before we began to pack up our home in St. Louis. I had one place I needed to cross off my list of "Must do before I move" list. So, my friend Helena and I drove south (from STL) to Johnson's Shut-In state park. It was a perfect day, or as perfect as a day can be for me. I was with a friend, the sun was shining, and I was walking in a beautiful place. Plus, Helena bought lunch, which again for me was a HUGE perk. I love Helena as a friend, but the fact that she bring the [View Full Entry]

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Well st. louis is technically in missouri as well as Illinois, anyhow... We had no luck finding work there and kept running into snags with people and police, plus I lost my I.D one drunkin night, so we decided it was time to go home. We start walking towards the most obvious eastern highway to hike when some dude stops and asks us where we are headed. We told him east and he told us to hop in he would give us a ride to a truck stop on the east side and explained that walking through east st. louis is [View Full Entry]

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JOhnny had told some of his friends that we were coming down so we had a place to crash.. it was all fun, best dumpster dive town ever... mountains of fresh packaged scores. Yet nooo work what so ever- this was bad. So after three days in carbondale we decided to pack up and start hitching north for St. Louis. After three hours of walking we got picked up by a dad and his daughter.. we hoped in the truck and they took us a good 20 miles, after walking for another two hours a cop stops us and runs a [View Full Entry]

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The bus journey to St Louis has some good and bad sides. The good side is meeting Stefan who I have coffee with at the station before he heads on to Kansas City. The bad side is not getting a whole lot of sleep due to snoring co-passengers and the unfriendly Greyhound woman who will not keep my backpack until the evening bus leaves, hence forcing me to either walk around hot St. Louis with my backpack all day, or staying overnight. I choose the latter and take a cab to the Huckleberry Finn Hostel (the cab is necessary as the [View Full Entry]

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Cape Girardeau where we stayed last night is the largest city between Memphis TN and St Louis Missouri along the River. It has evolved from a tiny trading post to a frontier settlement governed by a French-Canadian commandant to a thriving, culturally-rich community of 37,000 residents on the world’s only inland cape. A teaching university was founded in Cape Girardeau that is now Southeast Missouri State University. We set out for the 110 mile trip to St Louis at 10:30am. This time we took the interstate which had been marked on the AAA map as a scenic route. Jeeves (the GPS [View Full Entry]

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Saturday , We packed up and headed north for St Louis. Along the way we stopped at a Cafe that the lady from Michigan had told us about. Lamberts, Well what a place.The line was standing outside where you take a number. We only waited about 1/4 hr before getting a table. They had a piano playing and its all set in an old barn, with number plates from all over America on the walls. We ordered our drinks and from them we should have known what was coming. I got a bucket of coke, Kids got huge hot chocolates. A [View Full Entry]

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Communicating with all of you is so easy and multifaceted in this day and age. Blogging, facebooking, emailing, cell phoning are all something that I had no idea of a mere decade ago when we were on the road last time. The immediacy of contact is both disconcerting and comforting at the same time. For the time being, it feels great to have contact with our good friends while we are going into the unknown. On the other hand, is so much availability required? I know when we were living in a more stable situation, I rarely carried my cell phone [View Full Entry]

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Melisse and I are doing all those bits of minutiae one has to do before embarking on a journey. We have lists and lists "to do". Some things are simple like picking up an audio cable so I can plug my first generation iPod into my car stereo. Others are more daunting such as making out a will in case... So the house is starting to be partially shut down. We are fortunate that our niece and her husband will be renting from us while we're gone. They are young and newly married so have little and can use a lot [View Full Entry]

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