A Long Day On The Road...

Today we started driving in Kansas and ended up in Illinois on our way south and east.  There were so many interesting things to see.

In Missouri, the State roads seem to be named using letters instead of numbers.  Hmmmmm.  That is interesting.

These strange route numbers kept me alert...sort of.

While we were trying to get through St Louis (it took well over an hour due to police cars blocking our lane then a little later a three-car crash which appeared to just pull bumpers off two different cars...the third one seemed to be a bystander...), I happened to see the Gateway Arch.  Out of several dozen tries, this is the best one:

It looks like cars are going to drive right up and over...but they can't.

Somewhat to the east of St. Louis it began to rain.  That was such a blessing.  Driving through St. Louis during rush hour with the already mentioned traffic issues would have been a nightmare with rain added in.  Thank You, Heavenly Father.  Seriously.

This is what we saw during the rainstorm:

It always makes me happy to see a rainbow--because they are so beautiful and because of the rainbow prophecy.  One more year at least...though I cannot remember where to find that prophecy. Someone can remind me.

Finally, we arrived at our motel after nine-plus hours on the road, I wanted to drown our sorrows in food.  Dear One just wanted to drop into bed after finding a motel for tomorrow night.  Well, with his good friend, the channel surfer...!  There was a "Grand Buffet" restaurant right next to the motel. I queried the desk attendant who said she could not recommend it. It is a Chinese and American restaurant but she said she advised against it.   Drat!  I love Chinese food.  At least, I love the Asian sauces I have eaten almost universally.  Dear One is not adventurous and thinks he does not like Chinese.  What a disappointment.  So...I crossed the road to a place called Bandanas BBQ.

This is what we ate:

This was Dear One's supper except for the coleslaw.  He LOVES garlic bread.  Also french fries.  What he doesn't love are green beans.  UNLESS they are deep fried!  He ate them ALL!  I was so surprised. I was going to get the fried okra since, after all, we are sort of in the South.  The hostess talked me into the green beans.  I guess I can wait until we get REALLY south to try some okra.  I am thinking fried okra is the way to go to put my toe into the okra-eating pond.  I mean, how can you go wrong with deep fried anything?!  Okra is really an alien food to me at the present time.

This was my bbq salad with pork on top.  They gave me a container of bbq ranch dressing with about 1/2 cup of dressing!  Can you believe that?!  Can you also believe that I used self-control and only used a little bit of that dressing?  That one you can believe. I put most of it in the trash bin. Sadly.

So, now we have an Olmec Bird Monster showing on TV as a possible UFO. I think I have had just about enough for today.  The lovely king-sized bed is calling my name.

Tomorrow we go back at it for another nearly 500 miles. Then only one more day after that to get to South Carolina, our first goal.