She Did Something

I think you might be getting the point that some of Jim’s somewhat less than excellently good plans have some, well, bizarre reasoning behind them. I’m getting used to it, but I’m sure that most people would stare blankly at him and wonder what he’s really talking about. After we left St. Louis, he said “Look for places to stay in O’Fallon. Now, at this point I’m thinking about 2 year old kids playing ring around the rosie…”OFODOWN” (all fall down in Twoyearoldish. Trust me, it’s a valid language), so I asked him to spell it. He did but I really didn’t get it, so asked again. He said “O’Fallon. It’s Irish, I thought you’d like it”. I had to laugh because he passed up two saint places to get me to an Irish non-saintly place. It wasn’t even really Irish.

We spent the night at a Hilton Garden Inn. It was pretty classy, so classy, in fact, that for all practical purposes, they made the lobby look like they served a free continental breakfast when in reality they charged a hefty price for breakfast. I mean they actually had those nifty plastic dome things for pastries and stacks of little boxes of cereal and milk pitchers right next to the coffee thermoses.

When we got done checking in the clerk said “Because you have Hilton Honors, you’re entitled to 2 complimentary bottles of water. Do you want them now, or later?” Of course, I took them right then, after I figured out that they weren’t going to even give me some powdered scrambled eggs for breakfast. The room was very, very nice so I can’t complain too hard. I’m still working on my hotel rating system so we’ll get to that later.

In O’Fallon we decided to go all out for dinner and head for the Outback Steakhouse. I’ve usually had very good experiences with Outback and ordered my usual prime rib. No one should be able to mess up a prime rib medium rare. That was the toughest, stringiest prime rib I ever tasted. That’s all I did…taste it. There was no way I could chew it. The staff was very nice about it and got me something else and gave me a free piece of key lime pie. They also listened to me talk about the EXCELLENTLY GOOD PLAN as opposed to less than excellently good plan much to Jim’s irritation.

Here’s a photo of Jim and Duck in the lobby of the O’Fallon Hilton Garden Inn:

Since Jim kept threatening to turn around and take me home if I didn’t stop sulking about the loss of the EXCELLENTLY GOOD PLAN, and we seemed to be heading west (Jim does get off on tangents sometimes. There is always the fear that I might end up somewhere way far away from where I thought I was going…and usually late too) I started to relax a little and enjoy the scenery. It was kind of pretty even if he did insist on staying on the interstate and driving a little faster than he should past casino exits.

We got off the interstate at Greenup, Illinois. The town was really old and unusual but we especially enjoyed our visit to the little convenience store where there were two very old women (and a little girl) buying lottery tickets…lots of lottery tickets. We got to stay there a long time because they were scratching those tickets off right there at the counter. Then the village policeman came in and he bought a lottery ticket too. The conversation went something like this:

Woman 1: I got another free ticket! Is that your granddaughter or great granddaughter?
Woman 2: I got $15…great, great granddaughter
Woman1: You still workin’?
Woman2: Yeah
Woman 1: I done quit workin’. I got another free ticket.

The village policeman mostly smiled through the whole thing. The conversation was a lot longer and very amusing but I don’t remember much more of it. When we left the store, there was also an old guy leaning against a motorcycle scratching off lottery tickets. Looking around, we realized that lottery ticket scratching was pretty much all there was to do in Greenup, Illinois.

To appease my need to not see America from the interstate, we explored an old back road to something called Possum Run. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but after driving way out of our way we realized the sign was a trick to get us off Jim’s somewhat less than excellently good plan so we turned around. We did explore another back road and found a covered bridge.

The best part of this bridge wasn’t the bridge. It was a parked car with a really old guy sitting slumped over the steering wheel with the radio on. He had his eyes closed so I said to Jim “Is he dead?” (the whole time the question was running through my mind whether it would be better to call 911 first, or take a picture since I had the camera out anyway and after all, I’d never seen a dead guy slumped over the steering wheel with the radio on next to a covered bridge before…and I am just a tiny bit strange…well…you know…). Jim thought maybe it would be a good idea to check on the guy, but by the time we turned around (remember, this was a narrow road and the Veracruz is kind of big) it was obvious that the old guy was hiding out from his wife so he could smoke his cigar.

Oh yeah…St Louis…

I had no clue that I wanted to go to St. Louis. I mean the main purpose of this trip was to hit as many states as possible with just a few serious destinations thrown in there so we didn’t look like we were trying to be aimless which old people really shouldn’t do.  So, I had to hit Missouri, but St. Louis really never had a part in my EXCELLENTLY GOOD PLAN. It did have a part in Jim’s somewhat less than excellently good plan though. We were back on the interstate after we stopped being lost around Greenup and were heading southwest. As we entered Missouri, I started seeing lots of casino signs. I already figured out that while he wouldn’t stop for casinos, it did irritate Jim a bit when I mentioned the signs and I was kind of bored, so I did mention them. He can always be such a great source of amusement. The traffic was pretty heavy when I first saw it and we were going pretty fast so I didn’t have time to get the camera ready, but I saw it!, The Arch! It was just so…uh…amazing standing up there tall and proud right behind the majorly large landfill. It took me until we were past the landfill to get the camera ready so here’s my first photo:

Now that was pretty cool, and I accepted it as a good reason for Jim to think I might want to go to St Louis, but I really think the best reason to go to St Louis was that that river right there was actually the Mississippi. I’m not sure why, but that really got me excited and so did the bridges and other stuff. I mean I did do the tourist stuff and stand around where the other tourists with cameras stood and took pictures. But that was the Mississippi and those WERE Casino boats on the Mississippi. He didn’t take any of my hints at all.

I amused myself by taking pictures of the things that the the other tourists weren’t taking pictures of…well…except for the statue in the river. I thought that was pretty strange.

Some of Jim’s less than excellently good plans aren’t too bad. They just aren’t mine until he makes them so.

I pretty much sulked my way through to Springfield, Ohio. Oh, I did think it was pretty and all, but I wasn’t going to let his plan be better than my EXCELLENTLY GOOD PLAN, therefore I sulked and didn’t even take any photos. I think Jim was gloating, but he wouldn’t admit it.

Why is Ohio considered the Midwest anyway? It seems pretty east to me.

We stayed in a Hampton Inn in Springfield. I got my revenge for the change in plans. Jim really doesn’t like all those pillows on the beds in Hampton Inns. I got the last swat in the pillow fight. Pure satisfaction.