Sunday, August 7, 2011

Holy Dragonflies, Batman!

The drive up to Chicago was sunny and filled with dragonflies.  Gabbie caught one with her windshield wiper.

We drove through Arkansas for a hot second.

But, Missouri was where it was at! Not only was there an influx of dragonflies, which I -gabbie- thought were miniature birds a la Alfred Hitchock, but there were so many Pro-Life Billboards, I almost switched sides. (kidding!) It wasn't even the quantity of billboards that got to me, really. It was the relentless copy they used to display the messages attacking the vulnerability of women who are already in a delicate state. Whatever, Missouri, keep your flat roads, cornfields, dragonflies, and opinions to yourselves.

we stopped off at Boomland...

 where they had all sorts of pickled vegetables and ham.

We decided to have cream cheese bagels a la Franks instead. As Stephanie was globbing on the Franks, she realized it might start to drip onto my legs while I was driving, creating dangerous driving conditions and compromising the integrity of the Franks spread. So, as to not lose one drop of Franks, she created these beautiful levees for proper Franks irrigation.

We got into St. Louis and were greeted by the massive Gateway Arch. The Arch, which stands on Missouri's west bank as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and serves as the largest man-made monument in the US, also served as the gateway to the half-way point on our adventure. It's strange, we've only been on the road for 6 days, but honestly, it only feels like two. I can't believe there is only a week left. 

We stopped at the Riverfront Cafe across the street for a quick stretch.


right before we got back in the car, this guy tugged by, appropriately named "Tom Sawyer" -a reminder that we were back up north 

Gabbie found a keychain with her name on it. (I never find Gabrielle keychains! it's always Gabriella or Gabriel... so this was kind of  a big deal)

Once we got into Illinois, it was all cornfields.







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