When Was the Last Time You Saw a Tractor?*

Day Three: 340 miles, 3 states, 8 hours

Somewhere SW of St. Louis, MO, 27 September 2007 5:30pm CDT

Great day; great weather; fast (and our shortest travel day) driving; and we've actually been here for over an hour. Laundry's doing, supper (spaghetti and meatballs) is in the making, and we're looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening. Unfortunately, they drained the pool yesterday, so I still haven't been able to go swimming (something I desperately would like to do because I think it would help loosen up the muscles that tighten sitting in a car for 7 hours a day. We're headed southwest, however, so at some point we're going to have to find an open pool, right?

Scenes from the road (no pictures because, well, I didn't take any):

Corn, soybeans, corn, cows, corn, fields, corn, and more corn.

Cars, cars, and more cars. Oh, and trucks, and trucks, and trucks.

Rest areas, truck stops, fast food, oh, and more corn.

In essence, we really saw nothing (nothing without words on it) that would indicate that we weren't still in the East (well, unless we were botanists, probably). But then, rounding a curve on I-55 we saw it: the first real indicator that we were far from where we'd come from; the unmistakable sight that is the gateway arch. No, we aren't in Massachusetts anymore. It was beautiful, and so was Busch Stadium.

Okay, we also saw: a tiny little house about 50 feet off the ground on a pole, looking like nothing so much as a bird house for large birds; a billboard encouraging us to "Visit Historic Downtown Greenup"; a double trailer truck belonging to a casket company; and a town called Pocahontas.

Today we did Indiana and Illinois the short way; tomorrow we do Missouri and Oklahoma the long way.

There is WiFi here, but it's $4, and we're just not that desperate to get online, so I'll post when next we find free WiFi.

* Quote courtesy of Lester Holt who asked just this question a few weeks ago on Weekend Today. Obviously, Lester's been living in the big city for too long. I would bet that the majority of the people in this country don't go more than a week without seeing a tractor. And we certainly saw plenty of them on our journey today.