while on the road

I went to visit a buddy of mine who lives near Kansas City for a week. Got back a week ago last Sunday.  Had a good time.  I stayed at my uncle’s house near St. Louis and it split the trip up nicely.  It was funny how different driving in IL and driving in Mo is.  IL roads are pretty much straight and sometimes veer slightly but that’s it and there’s no hills at all basically.  In Mo the highway is curvy and there’s hills and valleys fairly often.  I wasn’t used to having to vary how much I push the peddle to stay going the same speed because I’m used to IL highways.  It was real weird how huge the difference was and how odd it felt.  I didn’t notice it last time because last time I drove down I drove my mom’s car which has cruise control (mine doesn’t).

Stuff I saw along the way: 

-I passed a place in the middle of nowhere in Mo with a big sign that said, “Army Surplus” on the first line and  “deli & pizza” on the second and it was a gas station as well…  That’s a pretty odd combo.

-I was thinking I should probably eat and then saw that on the signs next to the road that their was an A&W restaurant and I’ve never had a burger from there so figured I’d check it out. I exited with the promise of a&w but had to settle for Hardee’s because for the life of me I couldn’t find the A&W place.  It wasn’t closed, because I didn’t see a shut down place either.  It was apparently just hiding.  Hardee’s was good though and we don’t have those around here either so at least it was something I can’t really get around here anyway.

-While at the Hardee’s (that was inside a Love’s truck stop and gas station), I was personally called honey (by the chick bringing me my food) and called partner (by a dude in the bathroom that was kinda in the way, “Sorry partner” he said as he moved and explained he thought the lady behind the counter messed up his receipt and he didn’t want to have to explain where gas went that he didn’t actually receive, he was a trucker).  The chick behind the counter at Hardee’s got called honey by some guy and one guy called another guy partner as well.  The black manager of the Hardee’s was talking to some regulars (apparently truck drivers and bus drivers stop there often on there route) and as he was leaving he goes, “Now ya’ll be good.” as like a goodbye.  Hadn’t heard that before.  Well, as I was walking to my car outside a different black guy said the same thing to a couple he was chatting with as he was walking away.  All different people.  Found that kind of amusing but at the same time kinda liked it.  Much more friendly atmosphere or something.

-similarly, I kinda needed gas, not super urgent but was in need of it soonish and I saw a shell station on the side of the highway and an exit that came up soon.  Well, I got off the highway and for the life of me couldn’t find it!  So I went to get back on the highway and there it was, mocking me.  I have no idea how it was hiding so well, it was all lit up and everything.  There weren’t any signs to it from the exit, which was also strange.  Oh, and on this exit they had European style ’round abouts’ where you go around the circle and exit the circle on the road you want… in Missouri… pretty strange.

-I saw a billboard of the coolest looking attorney ever… The guy is a personal injury attorney and wears a damn eye patch!!!  How rad is that?!  Found there webpage: http://brownlawoffice.com/ the billboards are just the two bottom dudes with like a blue background.

-on the back of a dirty semi trailer someone wrote, “Show me your tits!”  found that kind of amusing.

-On the way down to St. Louis while in IL I saw a college age guy with HUGE mutton chops driving an AMC Gremlin.  Didn’t get a picture unfortunately but ya, found that to be kinda awesome.  Always liked how AMCs look too.  Me and like two other people apparently (they’re always listed in ugly car lists).

-On the way from Kansas City to St. Louis I saw a Dolorean driving down the highway!  Got some pictures of that.

Delorean Delorean 2 Delorean 3

-Apparently Missouri and Kansas think it’s cool to just close entrances from one highway to another.  On my way out of my buddies town I was going from 35 to 435 (think that’s right) I couldn’t exit the direction I needed onto 435 and couldn’t exit going the wrong direction either.  So I got off the highway and tried going the opposite direction on 35 and I couldn’t exit the direction I needed but could luckily exit the wrong direction onto 435.  So then I got off the435 at the next exit and got back on going the direction I needed directly into construction traffic that brought a 4 lane highway down to one lane.  No detour, no nothing.  You can’t go this way, fuck you, find your own way.  Good times.  But not as good times as when I was leaving St. Louis.  I was driving along and I think two highways were the same road for a little while then split, well, the split I needed was blocked, so I could do nothing but go down the highway I didn’t want.  So I exited and it seemed like a decent area but as I was wandering around and quickly started seeing run down buldings and some were boarded up.  Well, as I continued to wander the area got worse and worse to the point where there were more boarded up buildings than not.  At one point I passed a church that not only had a steel door and bars on the windows but a chainlink fence with barb wire across the top!  So ya, it was a real nice part of St. Louis.  Anyway, after about 45 minutes I found my way back to the highway I needed and was off.  By then I was getting hungry and saw a Little Caesar’s and figured it’s cheap and would be quick… well, it was cheap but it was far from quick.  For those of you that don’t know, Little Caesar’s schtick is they already have the pizzas ready and they’re $5.  You walk in, pay your money and walk out with a ‘Hot-n-Ready’ pizza… Well, my Hot-n-Ready pizza took them 20 or 30 minutes to give me.  According to my GPS how far I had gotten should have taken me 30 mins and ended up taking about two hours!  I contemplated going back to my uncle’s but then I’d probably have to randomly wander that awesome part of St. Louis only this time in the dark… So ya, I drove on and got home at 2:30am.

-The mosquitoes here in IL have been really bad this year.  There normally bad but this year it was EXTRA bad, even for here.  I was shocked to find that there’s basically no mosquitoes where my buddy lives.  None.  Didn’t get one bite and we sat out side during the day and at dusk and at night.  Not for like hours but it doesn’t take that long to get a bite.  Trust me, if there were mosquitoes I’d have known about it, since I’m sweet nectar to mosquitoes.  Seriously, people that normally think mosquitoes like them feel sorry for me.  Same thing happened when I was eating my Little Caesar’s pizza, I was sitting outside at dusk and no bugs bothered me, let alone mosquitoes.  I’m not sure what the difference is, how there could be basically none there and an insane amount here but we need to bottle that shit and bring it up here because these mosquitoes are fucking ridiculous.

-On the way down I saw a cool looking baja desert-style racer car thing.

Desert Race Car Desert Race Car 2 Desert Race Car 3

-There was a farm in southern IL that had a crapload of wind mill power thingers all over the place.  They were huge.  My phone didn’t take great pics of them but there were way more than it shows in the pics.  On the way back it was night and pitch black and each of the poles that hold the blade had three or four bright red lights and all the lights on all the poles blinked at the same time, it was mesmerizing.

Wind Mill 2

– Saw this at a rest stop, note where the floor is in comparison: hand driers.

-Saw this at a rest stop too. Are there chicks specifically looking for truckers? You know, that aren’t actual whores I mean.

-Why are the prices the same for regular and super? Also, I’ve never heard of that gas station brand and found it slightly amusing that technically all the words in there name are misspelled.

-This is handicap friendly BUT NO PARKING HERE! this was on a door 30 feet from the parking area… wtf?

no parking no parking 2

-Had to snap a couple pics while driving towards the arch in St. Louis.

St. Louis Arch St. Louis Arch 2

Well, that’s longer than I thought it would be.

2 Responses to “while on the road”

  1. bLOB says:

    my buddy Jeremy’s response after reading this post:
    “I drove to fucking NC and didn’t see as much cool shit as you did just going to MO”

    he drove from IL to NC and came back via Pittsburgh. haha

  2. Intuit says:

    Aallrrigghht !!! Went on that vacation! 🙂

    Always wanted to checkout one of those Monster Truck rallies. Number of years ago did one of those stunt-motorcycle events with my Niece, Nephs, Brother. Unfortunately our local downtown arena is wwaayy too small for that and they were very limited. Frankly I’m amazed that nobody died trying to get up enough speed while at the same time not smacking into a wall on the other side. They actually had to use the tunnels regularly when ordinarily reserved for folks entering/exiting the field. When they advertised that the Monster Truck rally was to be held there, we said “no way” and didn’t bother going. If they barely had enough room for a bike, there’s no way that a big-ass truck would have the room to do anything even remotely interesting. Should’ve been advertised as the Grandma Truck Showcase instead of Monster Truck Rally.

    Yeah it used to bug me driving behind folks that couldn’t find the gas pedal on a hill. (I’m behind them going “IT’S RIGHT THERE UNDER YOUR RIGHT FOOT!!!”) The Ohio Valley of course is nothing but hills. You want to know what’s really odd is, you’d think that biking on flat land over in Indiana would be better right ? Nope… BBOORRIINNGG!!! zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Give me the hills and curves of the Ohio Valley any day. Keeps it interesting. (VERY interesting when you can easily coast 50mph with a good road bike)

    As far as the eater-slash-gas stations, there are a few around here but for whatever strange reason I’ve just never liked the thought of it… especially since fuel stations usually smell like well, fuel, all day. Want at least a [i]little[/i] more space between my food and carcinogens. (probably nothing but ehh…)

    On road trips growing up, my Father would *always* skip places unless he could SEE it from the highway. Of course the few times I’ve personally made exceptions to the road are the few times the $@$#%@# had me driving halfway across the countryside to get to the place. (and in one instance, only to find they didn’t have a zon machine) So I pretty much stick to the same rule now. Oh, also remember one time I drove far off looking for the place, that once finally got there ended up watering the bushes behind it because I wouldn’t have made it inside. 🙂

    Always got to be careful when eating fast food from different areas. Many areas, especially the more rural ones, rely on ground water. The microbes aren’t bad, but are different. Sometimes that difference upsets the localized balance that exists in everyones gut. Result can of course be a mild stomach ache at best, or the runs at worst. Actually the worst would be having the runs and being sick as a dog. Then there are the full blow boctchlism cases. Found out my Father and Uncle were laid up in a hospital for a few days when they traveled together one time. Not an ideal vacation. Travel with Immodium AD and a Port-O-let, if your car permits it. 😉

    Yeah them folks was rreeaall “kountrie” hehehe. Small towns are like that. Probably didn’t even lock their doors back home, everybody knows the local sheriff and they all know eachother’s business. No local news caster to scare everybody on a nightly basis.

    Now… if that eye-patch wearing attorney were holding-up a scanner and pictured himself behind an ambulance…

    Re the dirty trailer… did you oblige his… maybe “a his”… hopefully a his… request ?

    That Delorean you’d think be worth some money… but last I heard from some TV show, not that much actually.

    Imagine how busy they’d be if they were hookers with an “insert quarter here” sign eh ? Yikes…

    As far as pricing, perhaps they just needed to move the inventory. I think the only difference between Regular and Super are the additive packages. What I’m not sure about is whether the additional additives are added to the “Regular” stream or are they actually using separate tanks. If they’re using separate tanks, perhaps they just needed to move the product before the fuel stagnated ?

    I think that sign simply means that wheel chairs aren’t allowed to park there. Kind of the handicapped version of a “no loittering” sign. 😉

    Glad you managed to slip away for a bit… and thanks for sharing. Very interesting hehe…

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