First town we came to was Ottumwa (population 25,000; elevation 649). The town was named for the Native American word meaning "rippling waters." The city is on both sides of the Des Moines River. They also have an attraction called "Beach Ottumwa" which is a water park with wave pool, a 340 ft body slide and even a sand volley ball court.
We took a 6 mile side trip to Eldon to see the "Gothic House." This was the house shown in the painting by Grant Woods called American Gothic. They had an information center where "costumes are available for personal photography." Jim said, "No way!" So I just got a picture of the house.
At Mount Pleasant we turned south onto the "Avenue of the Saints," a recently finished 4-lane highway that connects Saint Paul with Saint Louis. An hour or so later, we were in Missouri. We soon saw signs for a "roadside park." It had picnic tables and trees, but no restrooms. Jim figured it was not "modern."
We had to slow down for several farm equipment vehicles on the road. Earlier, we had mentioned farm vehicles to Rob when we were talking about "wide loads" and he said, "Oh, farm vehicles have their own rules." So we figured that mining vehicles have their own rules in Wyoming, and farm vehicles have their own rules in the midwest.
The freeway curved to the east and we went through a stretch of stop lights right through the city of Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal is the place where Mark Twain grew up, and he based his Tom Sawyer books on this area. There was a scenic route along the river with points of interest related to Tom Sawyer. We decided to forgo the side trip to prevent arriving in Saint Louis during rush hour. We did pull into the Visitor Information Center, hoping that it was "modern." Fortunately, it was. Also picked up a map and some information about Cape Girardeau, where we decided to stop for the night (about 100 miles south of Saint Louis.)
Missouri has some unique roadside quirks. First of all they put mileage markers out every two-tenths of a mile (instead of every mile). Second, state roads are not numbered; they are lettered. That is, we have state Route "E" and Highway "KK." Thirdly, they name their cities after other states and countries. It was confusing to see a road sign directing us to "Mexico" and "Louisiana" (this was on the same sign. I also noticed that there is a "Florida" Missouri. And finally, they have signs warning of "photo-enforced red lights." Thanks again, Gary :-)
We got to Saint Louis ( population 348,187; elevation 585 ft.) about 2:00 and ended up on a beltway (I-270). There was a lot of traffic and five to six lanes in each direction. Jim started complaining about all the downtown traffic. I told him, "We are on the by-pass." Really glad we weren't there at rush hour.
We headed south on I-55 towards Memphis and stopped in Cape Girardeau which was established as a trading post in 1733 on the banks of the Mississippi River and settled by Spanish immigrants who were offered inexpensive, tax-exempt land.
We stopped at exit 96 and found a promising motel -- there were quite a number of motels here for a town with a population of 38K. When I tried to check in, they only had one room left, a smoking room on the third floor. We decided to try the next exit since this exit was very congested. We found a nice hotel; no rooms. This is Tuesday. What gives?
I asked the clerk why all the rooms in town were full. He said that Ben Affleck was making a movie in town. It's a film called "Gone Girl." He said a lot of the crew and actors were staying in town. Also, there were several events going on at the college, including parent's weekend coming up.
The clerk called some other hotels for us and found one hotel that had 3 rooms left, so we hurried off to check in. It turned out to be a really nice hotel. It's right next to the freeway, but it is a little tricky to get to, so maybe that's why they had a few rooms left. I did hear the clerk tell someone on the phone that they were full on Saturday and only had a few rooms left on Friday. The hotel has a large indoor recreation center where they serve breakfast. The inner courtyard also has a pool downstairs and pool tables and ping pong upstairs. You would never know from looking on the outside that it has all these features on the inside.
We took a ride downtown. Once you get past all the hotels and strip malls, the town is old and charming. Lots of beautiful brick buildings and the main street parallels the river. There is a large sea wall along the river with murals painted on the cement slabs. There is also a casino in town which we didn't find, but we did find the college. It is down by the river overlooking a very picturesque bridge.
The college is Southeastern Missouri State University with an enrollment of 11,729. Their mascot is "Rowdy the Redhawk."
We went back to the motel and played a little ping pong. Then Jim went down for "Cookies and Milk" which they have every night from 8:00 - 9:00.
I had time to catch up on the last episode of "Breaking Bad" before turning over the Kindle to Jim who is now watching the Denver/Oakland game.
We checked the weather channel and it looks like the bad weather may clear out before we get there. We'll see tomorrow as we head for Mississippi and Alabama.
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