Day 2: Missouri

That afternoon we roll into St. Louis and check out the sights. The culture...

...the historic district...

We even drank beers and ate some delicious buffalo meatloaf! (There are many more arch pictures where these came from folks, count yourselves lucky).

I even got a shot from the arch parking lot.

Astoundingly, there are other fine examples of architecture in St. Louis.

Uncle Hops greets the native peoples in the arch museum.

"Are these characters auto... auto-erotica?"

"The mighty Mississip', the Old Miss the Old Man..." (I reserve the right to one Clark Griswold quote in the St. Louis section).

We drove on into the night trying to find an open campground, braving dark back roads full of owls and possibly chupacabra.

At last we gave in and stayed at this motel.

Day 3: June 30, 2005

If only we had signs like this on the east coast. Note that there is a MINIMUM speed. One love.

We stopped in at the Jesse James wax museum, but, to the disappointment of those inside, only grabbed a pic of the sign.

Hey yo Mas. Check it out, Mas. Bourbon. Bourbon on the rocks.

Aaaaaaand... we hit some more traffic.

We make a pit stop at Onendaga Caves. We narrowly avoid a tour with a big crowd of loud-ass kids, but cannot avoid a little kid peeing on his dad's foot.

Some cave formations.

Some unnecessarily phallic cave formations.

They love it in Caveville!

Fzz!

According to the road atlas, the population center of the US was around here somewhere...

I give you the "population center" of the country. Not even a sign.

Hehehehehe... "wood".

A typical Missouri landscape. Lots of hay.

Steers! Steers, and nothing else. Unlike Texas.

A long curvy road.

Springfield again! And it's right near Kabul!

You can read.

A granite monument erected by Lincoln himself.

Harry Truman's house.

Near Truman's house was Carthage, MO, the place where the famous Civil War battle of Gettysburg was waged.

Martinek carefully and skillfully reenacts the Battle of Carthage.

The blood-soaked fields of war.

Nops returns fire!

The bunnies advance!

Many Bothans died that day.

In southwestern Missouri, we find the first evidence that we have been roughly following Rout 66 since St. Louis. Most of the original sign are gone so they put the Historic 6 things up, but they apparently get stolen a lot, so following the original rout is quite the pain in the ass.

Our first classic Rt. 66 destination is Joplin (we also tried to get pictures of the 66 signs in each state, so here's Missouri).

And here's a better shot of one. Actual, maintained roads that are still called 66 are very rare.

Here they are *re-paving* goddamn Rout 66. Priceless.

Thank's Joplin! Thank's for continuing to fuck with the mother road!

The historic rout winds past some cool old buildings.

And, nearby, we start seeing the logo painted on the old roads.

Next: Kansas