Donna and Grant's Colossal Adventure

Wishful thinking departure time: 10 a.m.
Actual departure time: We left the hotel at 9:55 a.m. but went to a market down the street for food supplies. We got on the road at 10:30 a.m. Grant also bought hard candies from a local candy store which were wonderful on the road!

It was a beautiful day for the start of our trip, warm but with some cloud coverage. Grant noticed many areas in Pennsylvania were deemed "fog areas," although we saw none of that. We did see plenty of great signs on today's trek, including one for Jib Jab Hot Dog Shoppe near the hotel, Meander Reservoir, Hotel California, Innovation Way, Aegean Apparel, the Great Miami River, Poet Biorefining, Mario Brothers Mexican Restaurant, Butts-Pell Real Estate Auctions, Kaskaskia River and Kaskaskia College, and Paul Simon Highway right before the exit for St. Louis. That sign had a glittery bow tie on it (because bow ties are cool).

We were also reminded quite a lot throughout Ohio about not driving while under the influence of drugs and reporting those who are drug traffickers. I didn't realize Ohio was such a hot bed for these kinds of illegal activities- apparently it's the Mexico of the Midwest. We also came across several signs (and eventually the business) of Tom Raper- Raper's RVs, Raper's Rent to Own, and Tom Raper Way. It was kind of disturbing how often we saw this Raper's name all over the highway in OH!

And there were plenty more unique signs that caught our attention as we went along. A Stradlin Bros. Welding sign read "Trust Jesus" in the corners, which Grant thought was not a good selling point for a welder. Shouldn't you want to trust the welders you're paying for the job? But another billboard told us "Jesus is real" and a radio ad suggested, "Don't worry, just pray." Then we passed a church named Salem, which also seemed wrong! We also saw signs for Indianapolis Park where they claim to have "the loosest slots!" I'm not sure I should repeat some of our comments for that one. We also noticed a sign on I-70 W in Illinois that read, "Hit a worker, $10,000 fine and 14 years in jail." We both guessed that this had actually happened, since they don't normally advertise something like that on the highway.

We also saw a lot of signs for places we had no idea were in the Midwest, including Wooster (which also had a college), Dublin, London, Urbana, Xenia, Brazil, Manhattan, Paris and Pocahontas. And for all you sports fans, we passed the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in Richmond, IN and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The one thing that amazed me was that the signal for the GPS appeared to be stronger in OH, where most of the scenery looked like this

But in CT, that had businesses and buildings everywhere, the signal dropped out CONSTANTLY! However, CT definitely had more rest stops than OH. It seemed like in OH they had bundles of bungalows (bungalow bundurus as we called them) or a group of businesses and rest stops, in-between miles and miles of absolutely nothing! They need better planning for those of us who, uh, like to stop and "rest" several times in one trip. And then when leaving OH there was a sign that read, "Ohio- So much to discover!" Um, sure. But the speed limit was 70 mph, so that was a redeeming quality!

Thankfully we got deli meat and made sandwiches at the first Pilot stop we found, which was next to a Harley Davidson outlet (one of the fanciest buildings on the block, of course). We also scanned through the local radio stations, and it took five different channels before finding one that played music instead of talking about God. We also found the station with Rush Limbaugh's show, where we listened to him rant about how the liberal media was forcing their agenda and flexing their power to change the name of the Redskins team. According to him, no one was offended by that name until the liberal media started talking about it. When we couldn't take it any more, we changed it to the next station which was playing "Stop Children What's That Sound," a nice contrast to Rushbo's political views. We also found a station that had Mike Huckabee talking about the impeachment issue, where he said they shouldn't do that because "it might give the president hope that he could get out of his presidency early."

But once we got past the political stuff, it was our turn to entertain. We finally reached the road trip stereotype of singing along with the radio, starting with George Michael's "Faith" and continuing with other greats like "We are the Champions" and "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." Later on I broke out the iPod and played DJ for the last couple hours of the trip. We also brought out a couple books, and Grant read a story called "BunRabs" from the book "Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies," and then passages from Stephen Colbert's "I Am America (and So Can You)."

We reached our midway point, Richmond, IN, at 3:45 p.m. and had lunch at La Chiquita Market and Restaurant. It was a hole in the wall, and with most of those places the food was amazing. I had a chicken quesadilla with green salsa and Grant had a beef tongue burrito. We thought it was pretty funny that we went to Indiana to have awesome Mexican food. :) They also had a huge spice aisle where I got Cai some ancho chile powder.

We decided there wasn't much else to do in Richmond so we took off for St. Louis. On the way we passed by the usual corn fields, but also a number of soybean fields. I had no idea that was such a popular crop there. And when we got into Illinois, there was a corn field with several signs that read all together said, "You are close to the world's largest wind chime and golf tee." Grant and I just looked at each other and said, "Oh yeah, we gotta check that out!" I had told my friend, Kim, we probably wouldn't be seeing any of those kinds of attractions, but how can you pass up something like that?? So we got off at the exit for Casey, Ill. and followed the signs to the chime. It stands 55'3" tall, and the longest of the five chimes is 42'. You could even ring the chimes, which sounded like church bells.

Then we noticed a sign across the street that read "World's Largest Rocking Chair," with two large pieces of wood already in place for the base. I figure in my sci-fi novel (which takes place 50 years in the future) I can have my main character take this same detour and have the rocking chair built when she visits. Then it was onto the tee at the Casey Country Club. The tee is more than 30 feet long, 6.26 feet wide at the head and 2.1 feet wide at the bottom. The yellow pine is held together by 60 gallons of glue and 120 pounds worth of screws. The total weight is 6,659 pounds. I thought it was funny that they also had a wooden viewing stage for it! According to their web site, they're also planning on putting a giant golf ball on top of it.

And once there, I discovered a sign for this place called The Yarn Studio, and they have the World's Largest Knitting Needles and Crochet Hook. We were like, "Wow. Who knew Casey, IL was such a happening place?" And, of course, we had to go check that out! Thankfully it was just down the road, and although the place was closed, I still got to see them. All in all, it was a fun detour!

Afterward we stopped at a Circle K, which was a first for me. And strange things were afoot at the Circle K, for Grant found this in the men's bathroom.

Um, WHAT?? That is definitely WAY weirder than the glow sticks!

Thanks to the central time zone, we reached St. Louis around the time I wanted to, 10 p.m. Driving into the city and seeing the arch was something else, and we also saw a horse carriage and the buses that were painted to look like trolleys. Our hotel, the Hilton, is gorgeous. They have these old vault doors from when the place was a bank way back in the 1800s, and the room is huge. Unfortunately there was a weird poop smell in our hallway, but we think it was from this room service tray near our door (once it was taken away the smell dissipated for the most part). No idea what the heck those people ate!

We left the hotel around 11:30 p.m. and asked the concierge for a recommendation for a bar or a place open late for food. He directed us to Calico's, which was only two blocks from our hotel. We walked there, and it was a fairly big place that was open until 3 a.m. We had nachos, where they covered each individual chip with the cheese, meat and jalapeno (the best way I've ever had nachos!), and a pizza done up "St. Louis style." It was a thin pizza with mozzarella and provolone, which was delicious with the red and green peppers we put on it. It was the perfect place to end our busy day! Tomorrow we will arrive in Goodland, KS for the night, and I'm not sure they have Internet access. So don't be concerned if I don't post for a couple days- we'll simply be in the bowels of the Midwest. :) Until next time, good night!

License plates we saw (much less today- apparently no one from outside the Midwest likes to travel in that part of the country):
12:38- Ontario
2:57- Kentucky
3:03- Utah
3:20- Idaho
5:15- Alabama