Tag Archives: Missouri

Great Western Road Trip, Day 24 – FINAL DAY!

Current Location: Volo, Illinois

Today’s Song: 65daysofstatic – Supermoon

Something about this song describes the scenery of this entire trip to me – starting off slow through the Canadian Prairie Provinces, then into the mountains and the coast and returning over the mountains, and back to the plains.

For the final leg of the road trip, I made the short (this constitutes “short” now!) drive from St. Louis, Missouri to Volo, Illinois. I was intent on getting home, so drove it as quickly as possible, with only a stop in Dwight, Illinois, for lunch. Continuing my attempts to stick to local places, I went to Dwight Pizza, which had a 4.5 star rating on Yelp. It was…OK. The owner was friendly, possibly overly so, but it was a welcome break from the road.

I got home and unloaded the car, put stuff away, and started a load of laundry, then went to pick up Charlie and Nora from Ma’s. To say they were happy to see me was an understatement.

Thus ends the Great Western Road Trip. The final totals:

6,409 miles traveled

126 hours and 10 minutes of driving

I’ll have a final post with my overall thoughts in a day or so, but to answer the biggest questions I get from friends and co-workers:

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I might rearrange the scheduling a bit, but that was one of the best vacations of my life.

Stay tuned for the wrap-up!

Great Western Road Trip, Day 23

Current Location: Florissant, Missouri

Today’s Song: Lazlo Bane – Superman (Theme from Scrubs)

I need you here with me
Cause love is all we need
Just take a hold of the hand that breaks the fall
Well I know what I’ve been told
Gotta break free to break the mold
But I can’t do this all on my own
I’m no superman

Yeah. I think too much sometimes.

This is the penultimate day of this road trip. I started the day on the outskirts of Kansas City. Through he power of Yelp (which is really served me remarkably well on this trip) I found a wonderful little bakery/restaurant in Overland Park called McClain’s Market. I fueled up with a granola parfait and an Americano (ever since I left Canada I’ve been hooked on Americanos – go figure).

Then it was an uneventful drive across Missouri. It scares me that at this point anything less than six hours constitutes a “short” drive. If you do this long enough, I guess that’s what happens. Along the way I finished my second audiobook of the trip, this one also be T.J. Klune (The first was The Lightning-Struck Heart). This one was Wolfsong, which I have read before. It is an intensely emotional book and had me crying several times as I traced the relationship between Joe and Ox to mine and Dan’s. A tough listen, but so, so worth it.

I met up with Rama and K at Sugarfire Smoke House in St. Charles, Missouri for lunch. It’s a fun, quirky place with great BBQ sauces. After that we went back to their place and…didn’t do much. Rama and I sat around and talked convention stuff and watched some TV. It was lovely, and considering that it was 105 F outside it was a great alternative to venturing out. A big plus was that I got to pet Zoe, their 90-pound Great Dane puppy!

For dinner we went to Ferguson Brewing Company where I enjoyed my last beer flight of the trip, which had some unusually generous pours!

After a stop for frozen custard on the way home (because St. Louis), I quickly crashed for the night and slept quite well, with the exception of being woken up a couple of times by some very loud thunderstorms.

Tomorrow: HOME!

Miles Driven Today: 257 miles

Time Driving Today: 4:05

Total Miles Driven: 6,075 miles

Total Time Driving: 120:12