Damn Phone, Damn Phone, Damn Phone, Damn Phone (in sing song)

First, let me apologize for my French. In a moment of lapsed judgment, I let slip an exclamation as my cell phone refused to cooperate with the picture of the Illinois border (the Sailor has decreed that we will capture each state on film as we cross the border) and a chorus from the backseat began singing the refrain over and over and over again. They were amused by Mommy’s use of “bad words.” While the tone and pitch of perfect angel voices was cute, I must remind myself that my vocabulary are little imprints on my devils-to-be and refrain from some of my more enthusiastic responses.

We have now stopped at two university stadiums (Marshall and Louisville). It would have been three, except we could not find the University of Kentucky late last night and I have been informed by the Sailor that we will continue to snap pictures of football stadiums along the route. I believe Kansas State is next. In my 12, almost 13, years of being married to the Sailor, he is filled with giddy excitement when visiting rival and not so rival football stadiums and I have pictures of him at various locale. I am still, after almost 13 years, baffled by this desire and no matter how hard he tries to get me excited about another football stadium, I fail to see the point. We’ve seen the Coliseum, Pompeii, Acropolis, Sistine, Necropolis, Kanaus, the Cave of the Apocalypse and many other historical structures that are far more impressive and awe inspiring and yet my dear husband looks at each of these modern structures as if they were built by Pat Healy himself.

We stayed in Jeffersonville, Indiana last night on a river front Sheraton courtesy of Priceline (gotta love the $60 fare). I drove back and forth through Kentucky and Indiana about 6 times in the space of a couple of hours. We were bummed to have to pass up the Kentucky Bourbon trail, although learning that the Jack Daniels distillery is in a dry county in which you cannot purchase alcohol continues to baffle my mind. I guess I am a little bit too much of a capitalist to understand that at all. Ah well.

We are in Illinois now (1015 CST) and marching onward to the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

2059: Heading toward Kansas City as I type. I am not sure what to tell you about St. Louis. It was a fun city. We had a GREAT recommendation for the Schafley Brew Pub (by a Priest!) and enjoyed (sort of) a FABULOUS meal, a nice selection of micro-brews, and two antsy kids from too much time in the car. I can’t really blame them, but the people around us probably didn’t know that and kept shooting us “the look.” In fact, the hostess told us when we came in that they didn’t have a children’s menu, which really didn’t come across very nice. Our waiter was super and we ended up getting several free drinks because it took them FOREVER to get our food to us. But seriously, we’ve now learned that we should just pick off of the kids plates, because their grilled cheese, chicken tenders and homemade fries were so amazing that we really didn’t need any of the rest of the gargantuan schnitzel, beer bread or malt fries. It was Good. Definitely worth the stop and we left almost exploding from the food—the fries were so yummy. Dave W., this is totally your sort of place.

Anyway, we put out caloric count to work hauling our kids down to the Arch to find that there was a two hour wait to go up to the top. We thought we would be smart and decided to get tickets at 1830, to hopefully bypass some of the crowds and also try to sneak in a visit to the World Aquarium/City Museum which the kids wanted to do. So off we went via the metro and several blocks of walking with the kids on our shoulders to find this museum that would be my own personal version of hell. This isn’t to say the museum isn’t cool, but it’s a completely odd mix of a Tim Burton film in an MC Escher world. It was kind of scary in a kind of cool, but not cool way. It was like a kid’s nightmare come to life and it abounded with thousands of kids running amok in their own personal fantasy world. Treb and I soon got divided as Patton wanted to see the “aquarium” (i.e. pet store esque floor of tanks of fish) and Merryn wanted to play. The museum had all sort of climbing things made out of wrought iron and caves and cubby holes and all sort of really weird things. And let’s just say that a lot of the climbing is HIGH, through metal tunnels that are open, outside and without anything under them and have I told you that I really am not a height person? Luckily, the building closed at 1700 and we had to leave to make it back down to the Arch for our tour.

Did I tell you I don’t like heights? Despite having tickets for 1830, we waited an hour and a half to get up the 635 feet of the Gateway Arch. It’s a beautiful architectural and mathematical masterpiece that I simply don’t appreciate 635 feet off the ground. You have to go up these freaking space pods that were built over 40 years ago crammed in with 4 other people and it creaks and sways and gives me the heebie jeebies. And then you get to the top.
The sucker MOVES. At 635 feet you can feel the Arch sway. (Is there an emoticon that shudders?) UGH. 4 minutes up, 4 minutes down and about 5 minutes up there plus 2 hours of waiting. I can check this one off the list of places to see but I really can’t imagine doing this one again.

On the upside, Little Miss Sunshine has had NO potty accidents in two days? Only my daughter would decide after months that potty training, that the weeks we are traveling would suit her to finally do it. We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and the Volvo lost it’s right side mirror today. These sort of things drive me nuts.

And people in the Midwest don’t speed on the interstate.

And while Schafley’s made for an expensive lunch, the leftovers have covered dinner…and maybe breakfast too. :)

I’m pooped. I confess that the Sailor is a much better traveler than I, and always has been. He handles the hiccups better than I. I am definitely the sort that if I have an 1830 reservation, then by golly, I better be on the tram at 1830. Waiting definitely isn’t one of my gifts. I was not amused by the wait, was tired and stuffed and ached and really just wanted to get on the road again, so that combination doesn’t make for an easy traveler. It’s something I work on. The good thing is that the Sailor off sets that well, so he is better at handling the kids then. I get them in the morning. Now as we head out, they are snoring in the back seat and we are getting closer to the half way mark. After a stop for barbecue in Kansas City, we will head to Manhattan, KS next visiting dear friends from Fort Monroe and catching up on good times.