A business trip took me to St. Louis so I went out a few days early and drove 175 miles south to the Ozarks National Scenic Riverways. The "lodge" in this national park is a series of small cabins with fireplaces and screened in porches. During the summer, people come here in droves to float down the Current and Jack Rivers in inner tubes and canoes. In the fall, very few people are around until the leaf peeping season begins. I happened to hit it during a warm spell of 75 degree weather, when the small (150 population?) town of Van [View Full Entry]

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Suggested Listening for this Entry: Anything by St. Louis native son Chuck Berry Suggested Foor and Drink for this Entry: A grilled sausage of your choosing (Italian, Brat, Polish) on a bun and a Budweiser (because you won't find any Miller products at Busch Stadium). After the previous evening's scares of non-starting jet engines and the Hampton Inn-Union Station in St. Louis not having the room I reserved (not mentioned earlier), I was ready for a new day. A day with baseball and beer. After picking up my rental tank, I mean SUV, and dropping it off at the hotel, I [View Full Entry]

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Suggested Listening for this Entry: "Star, Star" and "It's Only Rock and Roll" by the Rolling Stones. "East Bound and Down" (aka the theme from Smokey and the Bandit) by Jerry Reed...read on to find out why that one is included. Suggested Food and Drink for this Entry: Beer, beer and more beer in tall boy cans. A couple of blocks away from Busch Stadium, there is an area with a few bars with patios / outside party areas, perfect for enjoying some pre or post game libations. As I wandered that way, I noticed one of the bars had the [View Full Entry]

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This set of blogs is another Group Vacation. Our 2008 trip was from KC up and around Lake Superior into Canada and then a slight detour to Milwaukee for a few days for the 25th and 105th celebrations for HOG and Harley Davidson. The blogs are broken into sections, each being a day in the trip. The first blog of this trip is here Day 11 Monday The day starts early and as I am waiting for them to finish up I realize that I really don’t need to wait to pull out with them, after all at the end of [View Full Entry]

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Thrifty Travel Tip #2: Talk to the locals - you might find a nice place to stay or at least, the best place in town to grab a good meal. Thrifty Travel Tip #3: Shop at the grocery stores and eat in the car. Hello again, this time from St. Louis, MO!!! We left oxford pretty early but didn't make it very far but for good reason. We had a good start when we woke up early at Tom's around 9 AM. Dustin and I know that eating on the road can get expensive, so we decided to stop at Kroger [View Full Entry]

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Due to popular demand, I have caved in and decided to create a travel blog. Tonight is my last night in Kansas City. I fly out to Chicago tomorrow afternoon and leave the country 6pm tomorrow night. I'm nervous, excited, scared, anxious...Wish me luck! [View Full Entry]

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Today we toured around Saint Louis. We went to the top of the Arch after viewing a video about how they built this 640 ft. tall structure. The construction workers would walk around the top with out any ropes, crazy. We walked down to the Missippippi and had lunch at the Landing. In the afternoon we made it over to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and watched how they make Bud. 0 miles traveled. [View Full Entry]

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The continuing saga of my exploits with Effie my 2005 883 Low Harley Davidson Sportster. This is our 2nd endurance rally. The first one was the Cape Fear 1000 which is in another blog: . I was one of 79 entrees in the Not Superman Rally (NSR), The NSR is a long distance endurance rally which started and ended at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau, MO. The brain child of the rally master Jim Puckett, the NSR proved to be challenging to experienced ralliers and to the first timers. At 6AM Friday morning riders equipped with a numbered flag and [View Full Entry]

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I drove today from Memphis to Kansas City it was really tough leaving and I'm not to prideful to admit I cried more than a bit. But once I got on the road it sort of all swept away. I slipped out of Tennessee to Arkansas Crossing the Mississippi. And on up into Missouri. I saw a crop dusting plane swoop down over the interstate and then spray a near by field it then went back over the road and turned away and to the left and sped off behing me for another pass. It was really one of the coolest [View Full Entry]

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Our trip across Missouri started out with a stop at the Harry S. Truman Museum in Independence. This was a good history lesson about the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War. From there we stopped for Lunch in Columbia. Seemed to be a cool college town with a nice village. After that It was off to St. Louis, Gateway to the West. We arrived at our hotel and hurried to get ready for the Cardinal game. We noticed there was lots of security. It turns out it was for Ben Bernake, who was also a guest at [View Full Entry]

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