We woke up this morning and got going as soon as possible – I could not get out of Arkansas quickly enough.
As we were leaving, I started making a list of possible slogans for the
Arkansas tourism bureau. A few examples
are:
·
Arkansas: One of the top 5 states
(alphabetically)
·
Arkansas: Close to some nice places
·
Arkansas: Still a state.
·
Arkansas: Like Kansas, but ars.
To be fair, the scenery in Arkansas became a lot nicer when
we got up to the northern part of the state.
Driving through the Ozarks was quite nice; however you still needed to
balance that with the billboards for “White Pride Radio”. Yeah, that’s a real thing. Needless to say, we will not be planning any
trips to “The Natural State” in the near future (or ever).
Things didn’t get much better after we crossed into
Missouri. Just as we were approaching
Branson we got hit by a huge storm – very heavy rain, strong winds, and some
incredibly scary looking skies. We made
it through no problem, but it was certainly some white-knuckle driving. About an hour before we got to St. Louis we
stopped in the small town of Bourbon, Missouri.
This town was on what used to be the famous old Route 66. Most of Route 66 is now interstate, but there
are some segments that still exist and one of those was here. We stopped for lunch at an old drive-in – the
Circle-Inn Malt Shop – and had some very mediocre food. Amy had a hot dog covered in a melted Kraft
single and I had a hamburger that most certainly had been in the freezer for an
extended amount of time. We also tried
melted cheese balls, thinking they would be like fried cheese curds. We were wrong; they were actually deep friend
cheese whiz, which is not a great taste.
We made our way into St. Louis and found our hotel. While it was by no means the Four Seasons, it
was (fairly) clean and comfortable, so that was a huge plus after the Hot
Springs fiasco. We got changed and headed towards downtown for the Cardinals game
against the Cubs. Busch Stadium where
the Cardinals play is right in the middle downtown, a few blocks from the river
and the Arch. We were actually able to
find street parking a few blocks from the stadium which was a nice surprise.
Busch Stadium is a great ballpark. Being right in the heart of downtown, there
is a ton of development – restaurants, bars, etc. – built up all around it. But unlike Wrigley, it actually seems to have
plenty of parking. Our seats were
probably the worst ones in the stadium, but they still weren’t all that bad. Cardinals fans seemed to be a bit calmer than
what you see at Mille Park or Wrigley Field (the same can’t be said for the
Cubs fans who made the trip down to the game).
Amy and I both ended up wearing blue to the game and I kept on waiting
for an obnoxious Cardinals fan to yell “Cubs suck!” at us so I could say “I
agree” and then leave them scratching their head, but no such luck – they were
all too polite. The Cardinals ended up
winning the 3-2 in a game that ended up going 11 innings. Even though it was low scoring, it was still
an exciting game with two runners getting thrown out at the plate, a home run
to tie it in the 9th, and an error by the Cubs with the bases loaded on the last
play to lose the game. All in all, a
very fun night.
Tomorrow is out last full day of the trip. A little exploration of St. Louis and then
over to visit the Taves family.
No comments:
Post a Comment