We drove through Missouri today. I was asleep for the better part of the morning, thank you Tylenol PM and Central time. But now I’m awake! I awoke in the city of Lebanon, and we had a small adventure. At first, when you’re right off of the road, it looks like every other roadside town we’ve seen so far, but upon further exploration, it’s a pretty decent little town.
We found out at the Captain D’s
that there was a Starbucks down the road at the local Pricecutters, a grocery store. So we drove south for about a mile, past the Wendy’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Sonic, and DQ. We cut through the old town, on Commercial Road, where, apparently, the town commerce had originated. There were really no interesting stores, but the old brick buildings are so awesome. I am a huge sucker for an old town. I love to know when and why it was built, who founded it, and so on. We didn’t have much time, so we found the Pricecutters, and saw that the Starbucks was “coming soon.” I swung the car around, and Todd just happens to catch that the Starbucks opened on the 25th. Great! So I park, and we go in. The young lady and two middle-aged women at the counter seem very friendly, and a little nervous. We are very friendly and happy to be getting coffee, which puts the blond girl with the freckles and pretty blue eyes and I even think she has a ribbon in her hair at ease. I order a drink with a ridiculously long title – a triple iced Americano with sugar-free vanilla and room for cream, and then start laughing because I’m embarrassed that I’m ordering this in the new Starbucks in Lebanon, Missouri, and the cute young girl, absolutely the captain of the cheerleading squad, looks at me kind of bitchy-like, but I know she’s just scared that she’s going to get it wrong, being the second day of business and all. She looks at me unblinkingly, intense at getting the order right, and sets to work. Me and Todd poke around the little stand, waiting for our coffee, and I make a joke in a drawl, about that gal darn $5 coffee, and I heard it were overrated anyhow, and Todd’s totally like, you better shut up, you’re making us look un-American, you’re going to get us shot, and all that, but I just laugh. They make us the drinks, and when the woman who looks like my mom’s age puts the whipped cream on Todd’s mocha, she gets a little giddy and says, “Oh, this is so fun!” I laugh and say it sure looks like it. I get my drink, and I look around for half and half, and they are filling them behind the espresso makers, and I ask for it, and they give it to me, and I take my first drink, and I’m in coffee heaven, and I say, “It’s really good! It’s perfect!” And the cheerleader looks so relieved. As we’re walking away the manager, so typical, late 30s, big belly, stupid haircut, furrowed brow, cheap but oversized watch, starts talking to the woman employees, so serious, like management of a Starbucks booth in a grocery store in Missouri is so empowering. And maybe it is. So we then adjourned to a little hamburger stand at my behest, a place out of the 50s called Swiss Miss Hamburgers and Ice Cream, complete with a sharply peaked roof – and Todd is annoyed because I don’t usually like places like this, but it’s too classic to pass up.
We get out and snap a pic, and go in. Inside, there is a counter and a man with grey hair, and I tell Todd, see, I knew it would be a family place. Except. Except. As we make our order, the man with grey hair seems exceptionally tired. His family, working behind him, doesn’t make any audible noise when they talk to each other. I look to the left and there are three white boys with caps and high-waisted Wrangler jeans on. There is just a normal Midwestern woman and man to the right. I hear the boys saying something like, “…and I told him he was one dead motherf****er…” and he didn’t sound comic. He sounded serious. And me and Todd have no where to go, to stand, and we don’t really want to sit, and we start feeling like this is some episode of the Twilight Zone where a couple, a nice but clueless couple, touring the United States, decides to stop at an old time burger joint in the middle of nowhere, only to find that they have stepped into, the Twilight Zone. Then one of the boys gets up to get his order, and he has scratches all on the side of his face (and that’s when I saw the Wrangler jeans, the cap, the boots), and I’m like, no, those are from a briar bush he was taking off the property, not from someone he was attacking…and suddenly behind us there is a loud knock on the glass door, and I jump out of my skin and it’s just this little lady outside, trying to come in, but we’re blocking the entrance, so, after the loud knock, she comes in and says so sweetly, “Well ah didn’t wahnt to hitcha…” and she giggles. Finally the son, the young, fifteenish looking son, calls our number and we pay, and I’m looking at him, and he doesn’t say anything but the total, and he says it so softly, and his mouth is hanging open a bit, revealing a row of crooked bottom teeth, and his eyes are really close together and he doesn’t really look at me so much as look through me, and I notice he has all these cuts on his left arm, and my heart sinks. We get the heck out of there. The burger is pretty good. We do not enter the fourth dimension.
We get back on the road and make it to the Mermac Caves. Jesse James’ hideout!
We pull off the road and have to wait for the Longest Train Ever to pass. We drive out to the cave site, and I drive too fast, and Todd says, geez babe, it’s not Hollywood. I go, oh my, god, where are we, in the most sarcastic voice ever, because driving ability is a sore subject in our marriage, and Todd sighs.
The Mermac caves are unbelievable. Todd is a little bit scared, because he doesn’t like to think about being trapped, but I love it. Our tour guide through the caves was dreadful; she kept making awful jokes and was trying to be tough but was just a dumb girl. But I loved the caves. I love the look of rock melting.
It takes millions of years. It’s crazy.
Then Todd drove us into St. Louis. We first went to Blueberry Hill to taste some world famous root beer, at Fitz’s.
It was pretty good (I liked my Stella better). We walked around Delmar and went to a cute bookstore and saw a neat old theater that was playing decent movies.
Next we were off to Cunetto’s, the home of the first toasted ravioli. It was really good, and we had calamari and beers and watched the baseball game on TV.
Cardinals won! Yahoo!
We went to the hotel downtown and called it a night.
6/27/07
We woke up late, and missed the complimentary breakfast, which is always a bummer. They only had a room with two double beds, and toilet made this awful sound every two hours, but the hotel was packed and we were getting a AAA rate, so we just dealt with it. I started out in one of the double beds, but couldn’t sleep, and crawled in with Todd at around 3AM. I know; I’m a wuss.
We took off for the Arch!
We walked around the old town riverfront for a few minutes.
It’s basically all bars and nightclubs, and I hadn’t even had lunch yet, so I wasn’t in the mood for just beer, so we took off, heading for Todd’s hometown of Indianapolis, by way of Illinois.
We pulled into Rockville, Indianna, around 8pm, and we drove straight to Todd's uncle's house, to surprise him. He was totally delighted to see us and then later, after we checked in at the Billy Creek Village Inn, we met him at Pizza Hut for dinner. I haven't dined in at a Pizza Hut in ages. We saw fireflies (me for the first time, ever), and there's been lightning storms. We are going to kick it here for a couple of days. Todd may mow on a big mower -- I may go on a hike. It's the midwest. We're taking it easy.
4 comments:
I miss Captain D's. There used to be one in Starkville. You could order a Seafood Platter that included stuffed crab. Sigh. No place like that here in L.A. There's not even a Long John Silver's nearby (and that's a pale substitute for Captain D's in my book).
While you were in the Mermac Caves, did you pretend to be Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer running away from Injun Joe?
Just out of curiosity, how many fireworks stands did you pass in Missouri? They must be out in full force with the July 4 holiday coming up. My most vivid memory of Missouri is the remarkable number of such stands (and they are apparently there year-round--at least, they used to be).
I assigned stories by Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor today so I'm probably talking very much like the people you encountered in the South, especially the one who "didn't want to hitcha."
I didn't actually eat at Captain D's. Todd loves it though, and he loves Bob Evans, and we both love White Castle. Todd likes Cracker Barrell, but I think it's overrated.
The tour guide did tell us about the filming of the Tom Sawyer movie, but by the time we got to Misourri, I was so disgusted by all the Native American exploitation , I was practically asking everyone who says Indian, "Oh really? From what part of India?"
There were huge permanent firework stores, though, and they would be next to huge Adult stores. I secretly hoped that one thing would lead to another, and a fantastic accident would occur. But, I suppose that is a little intolerant.
I must have offended quite a few people at the caves when I wondered, when it was said that there were so many picnics at the park near the caves, so, I wonder how many lynchings there were? And then, when we were in St. Lous, at the arch, the "Gateway to the West," I'm sure I offended several people by demanding to know where Lewis and Clark's slave and guide, York, was, in the animatronic display. It's so hard to be still. I get so agitated.
Ahhh, Flannery O'Connor, what was it, something about a man marrying a very special young lady and then leaving her penniless and mute in the middle of nowhere? I liked O'Connor. Oh, there was the fake leg one, too. That glass eyeball.
Do you think Missouri is the South? Sorta. My family is from Missouri. Joplin. There's not many left out there, but my great-grandfather's barn is still there, I'm told. We'll be in the south next week. We'll have our accents down by then.
I knew Joe would get drawn in once he signed up with a usename. Ha!
And Joe would have been a fine fella if he just had someone there to shoot him every minute of his life. Or something like that.
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