That Toddling Town

Spent two days in Chicago but i'm just going to sum it up in one post since i didn't take any pictures coming in. First of all the traffic coming in was horrible. Well, i guess it wasn't that bad but i was pretty tired and the "stop 'n go" junx just isn't my thing especially when i'm tired.

While coming in on 'Route 66' we were going about 65 mph and accelerating. All of sudden traffic just stops and of course i wasn't paying attention and had to jump on the brakes as hard as i could and as a result my tires started screeching and almost lost control of my bike. i tried letting go of the rear brake to straighten out but i must have been too tired to lift my foot off since my bike practically going sideways down the road....but i lived and no damage was done. i was sure awake after that.

i tried meeting up with my friend jenn since she is in chi-town but she was busy with class so there was a chance we would miss each other. For dinner we went to a couples house north of chicago. They use to be our neighbors in PA and when they heard we were coming into town they wanted us over for dinner.

It was kind of awkward since the husband has a french/arabic accent (don't ask) and his wife has a pretty strong vietnamese accent....this combined with the fact that my dad is hard of hearing is just a equation for awkward. They would ask my dad a question and he would just knod and pretend he heard them.

i needed out so i bounced on the next train back downtown hoping i'd find something to do. i texted jenn but she had already gone back home and i was left wandering the streets of chi-town by myself. i was so bummed out...i traveled to 17 states trying to contact everyone i could, tyler in utah, john in san fran, sagar and mike in los angeles, billy in springfield...pretty sure none of them wanted to see me.

Right on the verge of severe depression things turned around when i got a text from Ashley! Holla! Finally someone wanted to see me! i checked out her crib and town and it was pretty much the best time of the trip. Too bad it didn't last longer than it did.

It was also great to see the cat, Cloe! Apparently she likes me because she kept laying on my lap. Sometimes i wish i was a cat...>'.'< Then next day was all about seeing the town. We walked to the end of jackson (which is apparently route 66) just so we could say we reached the end. We walked since its pretty much impossible to park anything down there to walk around and take pictures.

After a few pictures, our next stop was the bean. Apparently its called the 'cloud' or something but if you ask me its definitely a bean...and massive shiny relective bean.
Good thing i was with my dad and uncle when visiting the bean...i probably would have never left if i was by myself. i could look at it forever..

After the bean we checked out the crazy water towers. These things are were pretty sweet...they're like screens with water coming down them. The first images were of waterfalls...and the next images...were people's faces! And they move! Then after awhile they spit water out of their mouths! That's not all, you can get your face up there if you go to the art center or whatever...and they tape your face and put it up! Personally i wouldn't want to do that since i'm kind of fugly...but if you're remotely ridicilously good looking you should totally do it.
Our next stop was Lou Mitchell's. A diner that is extremely old and apparently a hot spot during the days of route 66. Snapped a picture of the river while walking there..
This was a real diner...tiny and cramped. When you walk in the guys get free donut holes! Women kind of get shafted with the milk duds...

Jenn also had lunch with us. Apparently she doesn't go west of the river...and doesn't know where anything is in her own town which is kind of ridiculous if you ask me. But it was nice seeing her. Too bad she had to sit through the ramblings of my dad and uncle.

For lunch i ordered the reuben. This reuben was awesome...i was expecting a real sandwich but they gave me this open faced sandwich junx...but it was still very good.
After lunch my dad and i hit up the sears tower. There was a movie we had to watch before going to the top. It was so painful...i couldn't even stay awake through it. Pretty good view at the top of the tower...but we didn't have a lot of time to spend up there since our time was running out at the parking garage.

Around 2pm we had jumped on our bikes and headed back to Indiana to my uncle's place. It was probably the most painful ride ever. I was so tired running on like one hour of sleep. i was drifting all over the place and the slow traffice wasn't helping. After about 30 minutes of that i finally said i had to pull off and take at least a 5 minute nap.
After about 10 minutes of rest, chugging an espresso energy drink, and splashing water on my face i was ready for the remaining 2 hours left of riding. Oh man can't wait to go back home to my own bed...

Beer...

Woke up this morning, packed our bags, and headed back to the arch to catch the movie about building this crazy monument. This was one old movie...but still interesting. Watching guys walking in "I" beams and hanging off the ledge 630 feet in the air with no harness or anything....just crazy.

After the movie we went to the museum. It had a very interesting layout. It was in a shape of a semi-circle and as you walked into the museum the dates of the displays would change by decades. Well i thought it was a cool idea..

Saw this quote buy Orville Wright....boy was he wrong.

Here we have the oldest picture ever recorded in the United States...and i just showed it to you. Better be grateful. i guess you could have googled it...

Me and Jefferson hanging out.

Snap! He's still working on this thing! He finished the Liberty Bell!! Holla!

We finally stopped at a place worth seeing...The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company.

i know a lot of their beer is horrible...but they don't have 50% of the market share for nothing.

First thing we saw on the tour was the Clydesdale horses. Not sure what they horses are used for..i wasn't paying attention but these are some big horses. Their tails were short though...
Through the tour we saw the whole brewing process and found out that they use rice in their recipe to make the beer lighter..or crappier...depends on how you like your beer. Of course the only reason we went through the tour was for the free two samples of beer at the end. i had a wheat beer that i've never had before that was actually pretty good and my second beer was their pumpkin spice which i had the night before at Joe's Crab Shack but decided to have another one to see if it tasted any different coming straight from the brewery. It actually did taste better...like a stronger pumpkin spice after taste.
While heading out of St. Louis, we stopped at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. Supposedly the best ice cream ever...we'll see about that. When we go to Drewes we found out it was closed. Closed since sept. 1. Noooo! Thankfully a couple had parked near by coming home and told us that there was another Ted Drewes location that was still open. Looks like we got a little mixed up. This Drewes was the original store...and the other location was the Route 66 one which i guess is what we really wanted....since everything we do is Route 66.

This van pulled up to the custard place....they had a bore and deer (plastic) strapped on the hood...weird.

At the Route 66 Ted Drewes i wasn't sure what to get so i got one of their specials, The Big Apple. Its their vanilla ice cream blended with a slice of apple pie and they call it one of their concretes. It was pretty good but i wouldn't say it was the best ice cream i've ever had.

Or next stop was some random bridge connecting Missouri and Indiana over the Mississipi. Chain of Rocks Bridge or something...its closed but people are still free to walk across or bike it. My uncle and dad wanted to walk across it so they could say they walked across the Mississippi...woohoo.

One of the weird things about this bridge is that it has a bend in it...its not totally straight.

Some random super old fire truck..

Got another picture of a Historic Route 66 sign.

By the end of the day we arrived at our hotel in Springfield, IL and the guy at the front desk said if we were interested in beer...then smokey bones was the place to go.

i was feeling a little bit under the weather so i got a cup of chicken noodle soup.

When ordering beer...we all got a glass of Spaten but our waiter said that it would be cheaper if we just got a pitcher...so we did that...and after we had finished the pitcher we tried ordering different beers but my dad and uncle had wanted the same thing so we got another pitcher because for a dollar more we got a lot more beer and our waiter didn't want us to miss out on more beer for our money.

Still not eating beef...so i ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with the loaded mashed potato.

My dad and uncle failed to finish the pitcher so i had to step in and down the rest of it...poor me.

Well its been a long trip...the end of Route 66 will be reached when we arrive at Chicago tomorrow!

Are You a Hick Chick?

Finding our way to St. Louis. Our First attraction today had to have been the lamest. i mean come on...With a name Devil's Elbow it has to be cool right? Wrong...just some lookout onto a bend in a river which we couldn't even see because trees were in the way.


We pretty much skipped breakfast knowing that one of our stops today would be the Missouri Hick Bar-B-Q. Turns out that one of my dad's and uncle's cousins is married to a guy that is a distant relative to the owner of this place. So i guess we have no relation and getting anything free would be out of the question....but the food looked promising.

To drink i had some local beer...Schlafly Pale Ale. It was pretty good and is brewed in St. Louis.

The lunch special was pulled pork so i got that with a side of german potato salad. hmmmmmm.

The pulled pork sandwich was just alright...wasn't amazing. It tasted kind of plain and i needed to add a lot of sauce. From smoky and sweet sauce, original, and spicy....they were all pretty good but they would do a number on me later..

i was still hungry after the sandwich so i orderd some blackberry cobbler. The first time i had cobbler it was peach on a boy scout camping trip in saudi made in a cast iron dutch oven. Doesn't get any better than that. Though i didn't have ice cream with it on the camping trip like i did this time at Hick's. All the waitresses wore t-shirst that read "Are You a Hick Chick?". Seriously...who would wear that?

We arrived in St. Louis pretty early and headed straight for the Gateway Arch parking lot.

We parked our bikes, went through a security check, and got tickets for a ride to the top of the arch. To get to the top of the 630 foot arch you ride in a little capsule that can only hold 5 people at a time...barely five people. If you do not do well in tight spaces than this is not the elevator for you.
It was pretty neat looking out onto the city from the top of the arch but you don't get the magnitude of the structure from the top of it as you do from looking at it from the ground.

While at the park there was a guy there working on a super U.S.A monument sand castle. What happens if it rains?

Blogger: Adventures of Lazy Son - Edit Post "Are You a Hick Chick?"We then headed back to the hotel and looked for a place to eat. Uncle Floyd reccomended Joe's Crab Shack, the hippest sea food restaurant. i've never been to one nor have i heard of this chain.

This place is pretty wild. The servers just randomly dance to the music and there are lights and junx too. For dinner i got the crab cakes...love crab cakes.
Almost love crab cakes just as much as i love cheese cake. i go the cheese cake sampler. i liked the plain cheese cake slice the most. The flan looking one was the second best and the chocolate one...eh..
Since we do not have a long ride to Springfield, IL tomorrow we'll be going back to the arch to see a movie, visit the museum, and stop at a couple more sites on the way out of town.

The Ropin' Fool

Today we find ourselves leaving Tulsa and going to St. Robert, Missouri. Our first attraction we would be stopping at today was the "Blue Whale". One of the most recognizable attractions on Route 66. It was built by Hugh Davis as an anniversary gift for his wife who collected whale figurines. Weird...
This thing is so random. Its location is this water hole that locals would swim in. But now there are signs saying "No Swimming" around it. i don't even know why anyone would think about swimming in this...its so nasty looking.

Here is the mouth of the whale...

Here is uncle floyd diving off the tail of the whale..

After the whale visit and a few miles of traveling we stopped at the Will Roger's Memorial Museum. i'm sure i've heard the name before but did not really know who he really was. i mean come on, he died before my dad was born.

Will Rogers was a quarter cherokee and has a million quotes in this museum...

He also liked to collect saddles...He died at the age of 55 in a plane accident. His watch was stopped at 8:18. He wrote columns for the New York times and made 71 movies. He has some sick lasso skills that can be seen in his movie Ropin' Fool. He did some things i didn't even think were possible with a piece of rope.

We spent way too much time at this museum and even though we did not have a long ride today...we were in for a late arrival at our hotel..

Uncle Floyd and me caught by a train..

On our way to Missouri we actually went through a couple miles of Kansas. Silly Kansas..only getting a little bit of Route 66.
We eventually arrived at this bridge. Not sure what the name is...Rainbow Curve Bridge...i'm going to go with that. If you ask me i think that name is kind of gay. But i'm sure it was talk of the town back in the day.

Pretty fancy white bridge...

i got bored while at the bridge and decided to climb to the top of it. Not sure why i did it...i'm terrified of heights.

But i guess you either go big or go home...

Even if i did fall i'd probably only break one or both my legs..

Gas is so cheap in Missouri!! Hook me up! 3.15 bones per gallons is not that bad. Later in the day i saw it being sold for 3.07 bones per gallon. What a steal!

Three states in one day!!

Before reaching our hotel we stopped at this 'famous' motel according to uncle floyd's Route 66 book...took a picture and we were on our way again.
It was a little after 8pm when we arrived to our hotel. Some crazy hotel we haven't been to yet and since they didn't have wireless internet on the upper flloors the manager upgraded us to a suite on the first floor! That's what i'm talking about.

For a place to eat dinner at we wanted a place within walking distance. The place ended up at was called Miller's Grill. Ugh, had to look at the receipt for that one...

First things first....beer. 22 oz of Blue Moon..

We were all in the mood for potato skins...and usually when you get potato skins they cut up a single or even half a potato so we got two orders....To our suprise they actually use two whole potatos per appetizer. So we had 4 potatoes infront of us before the main course and i had already orderd a baked potato for a side before realizing how much potato was in the appetizers.
For dinner i got some crazy chicken thing with dijon mustard and bacon on top. i also got a side of apple sauce so i felt like i was eating somewhat healthy. By the end of the night i had consumed 2 1/2 potatoes.

Oh man i was so stuffed...next city is St. Louis!!