Saint Louis & Kansas

July 12

The days have been long and the rain has been coming down in torrents; I have never had so much fun in my life. The past two days have been a test of our patience and our wits, which makes this trip that much more rewarding. We have driven in major cities, cornfields, college campuses, and on every road surface imaginable. We left Chicago and headed south towards Saint Louis, with a stop at the University of Illinois planned. Champaign, Illinois is home to the Fighting Illini and is ranked as the 10th best public university in the country. It was a Sunday and campus was pretty dead so we hit the road to Saint Louis. The GPS device in my car said we only had a 2 ½ hour drive but Mother Nature had other plans. One of my favorite parts about summer weather is the way the rain approaches you in sheets that are visible a mile or two away. We made it through the rain to East Saint Louis and Malcolm W. Martin Park, a recently finished raised platform on the banks of the Mississippi with amazing views of the Gateway Arch and Downtown Saint Louis.

July 13

We woke up early on Monday to visit Historic Saint Charles, a small town on the banks of the Missouri we saw the night before, which holds the distinction of being the site of Missouri’s first state capitol. After talking to the owner of a local Irish/Scottish Heritage shop for a few minutes, she used to live in La Jolla; we started our cross-Missouri journey. The University of Missouri calls Columbia, Missouri home so we pulled of I-70 and went to the Columbia Skate Park, where we met and hung out with a few local skaters. After a few more hours on the road we pulled off the interstate right on the outskirts of Kansas City to see the homes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals (Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums respectively) for a few minutes while we figured out our game plan for the day. I have to say the nicest college campus/town I have ever visited is the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The picturesque Main Street is filled with local shops and also stores that are normally reserved for malls/shopping centers. Campus was buzzing with hundreds of people out walking or running through the hills of Lawrence and all through campus people were out enjoying the beautiful Kansas summer afternoon. Bruno was playing in Topeka so we unloaded the car at the hotel and went to see the most controversial movie of the year, in a city that makes a few appearances in the film. I was hoping for people to get up and leave during the more awkward scenes; however I underestimated the people of Topeka. One woman was having trouble breathing she was laughing so hard, while another man would make classic/precise comments that made the rest of the audience erupt in laughter. We were feeling restless after sitting for a majority of the day and the nearby Jeremiah Bullfrogs, a local dive bar, seemed like the place to see hangout with the locals.