A thousand apologies to the Midwest, but when traveling through, all of your states begin to look the same. After Colorado the road before us stretched through Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. By day five we were a little delirious. Our emotions swung back and forth between extreme ends of the emotional spectrum: everything we said was way too funny, but at the same time too serious.
Leaving St. Louis was a hassle because 64 was closed where we needed to get on, we got lost in the land of Outrageously High Speed Bumps, and we were both yelling at the GPS (“I can’t turn here, stupid! Stop yelling at me! If I turn left I will drive off that ramp! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?!”). We both suffered from heartburn, backaches, and atrophying limbs from sitting for hours on end (ahh, this is the charming part of fun car trips that they forget to tell you about). My bones turned brittle and my intestines abandoned me for living on a diet of coffee and microwaveable noodle bowls. To motivate ourselves, we took unnecessary inspiration from the radio (“But we’ll try, best that we can, to caaaaaaaaaaaarry on!”).
Basically when you’re two native New York girls driving through a state that is nothing but flat farmland dotted with signs like “Jesus is Lord of All! Pornography Destroys!” and “You Are Now Entering the Hometown of Kansas’ favorite son: Bob Dole,” things start to feel desperate. “Where, oh where, are our spectacular red Utah cliffs, our breathtaking Colorado mountain views, and our welcoming western blue skies?” we lamented. We had left them for Middle America, the land of conservative Christians and fast food (and aggressive advertising schemes for both). I stopped taking pictures of the landscape and started taking pictures of interesting or bizarre signage.
Needless to say, we were thankful for the urban oasis that St. Louis provided. Sadly, the city was completely wasted on us. In numbers, this is our experience in St. Louis:
- 5: Time we woke up Monday morning in Colorado Springs.
- 8: Time we actually got on the road due to the Garden of the Gods and delicious breakfast detour.
- 10: Hour at which we decided Poptarts would be an excellent addition to the morning.
- 10:10: Hour at which we both suffered extreme heartburn from extreme eating.
- 15.5: Number of hours on Monday spent driving through Kansas and Missouri
- 3: Number of times we filled the tank on Monday.
- 114: Number of CDs we played (approximately)
- 11:30: Time we arrived in St. Louis Monday night.
- 30: Number of minutes we spent talking to my roommate’s cousin (our host) before the three of us passed out.
- 7: Hour at which we were planning on leaving the house Tuesday morning.
- 9:14: Hour at which we actually woke up Tuesday morning.
- 10:36: Hour that morning at which we took pictures of the Gateway Arch from the car as we sped out of St. Louis.
Tuesday we drove through Illinois (which, to my credit, I thought would be more populated than it was!). The Illinois landscape looked enough like New York to make me both homesick and painfully aware of how many hours and miles and days and gas stops we had to go. At least when we crossed from Illinois into Indiana, we finally entered our home time zone!
Tuesday night we spent in Columbus, Ohio, stocking up at Trader Joe’s, sitting in our hotel’s steam room, and enjoying the feeling of standing on the ground for an extended period of time. And then came: THE FINAL DAY ON THE ROAD!
Signs of civilization:
