Today we had breakfast with my sister Connie and her husband Eddy (yes he does exist he is not a myth) at the IHOP in Elizabethtown, KY
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before we headed out on 144 North to 64 which we followed into St. Louis, MO going through Indiana and Illinois. About 11:30 the temperatures soared to 95 Degrees. The heat started to become unbearable. We decided that we would stop at the next rest stop a little over 60 mile ahead and have a picnic lunch. It was a ways ahead but we fiured we could endure the heat that much longer. However when we reached the rest stop it was closed and we decided we needed to get off then very next exit to get some shade and have lunch. When we go off the exit there was no shade in site. We headed to the closest town and I asked SIRI to find us the closest park. So we had lunch at Maple Park in the small town of Mascoutah, IL. We enjoyed our picnic and definitely the shade. Once we finished our lunch we headed out to fuel up and get to St. Louis which was about 25 miles away yet. We stopped for Fuel and Jeff went inside to the restroom and wet his shirt for the ride. Until we arrived in St. Louis the temperature had risen to 102 degrees. We headed to the Arch
in St. Louis, but there was construction all around. Finally we parked in a parking garage and walked around the construction to the Arch. We waited in line to go into the Arch and went through the security, once inside we found out that we would have a 2 hour wait and then it would take an additional hour to go up the arch. We decided that we could not wait as there was a HUGE strong storm headed to St. Louis threatening softball siz
ed hail. We did not want to see it so we looked at the weather radar on the ipad and headed out of St. Louis on Route 44 (Old Route 66) and we were successful in avoiding the storm. Once ahead of the storm we started to see huge fields of grapevines. We decided to stop at St. James Winery and do a wine tasting. We Loved the Velvet Red wine, raspberry wine and peach wine, We bought a bottle of the Raspberry and Peach and then also got 2 small bottles of the Red Velvet. We headed down Route 44 to St. Roberts, MO where we go a room at the Super 8 motel, got showered and then went to the historic town of Waynesville, MO. We went to the “Frog” themed pub Hoppers Pub and enjoyed dinner. Jeff tried Frog legs for the first time---LOVED THEM. He had a Mushroom swiss burger for dinner and raved that it was the best burger he has ever had. I enjoyed a rib eye steak before we headed back to our hotel for the evening. Off to Kansas in the morning. Total miles for the day was 460.
