Visiting the relations! Road Trip USA Midwest

I like driving American highways in October.  The weather is usually perfect, traffic is lighter, noisy kids are back in school!  This year, I planned a road trip to visit my relatives in Missouri and across Indiana.

Ready to go at PHX

I flew from Phoenix to St Louis on Oct 17^th.  It was mostly clear all the way and I got some good photos out the airplane’s window (if such can be had).  We over flew Four Peaks and Roosevelt Lake, Springerville/Eagar (AZ), and the Rio Grande near Socorro.  After that I knew when we were over Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, but couldn’t have told you much else – until we reached central Missouri.  There, I recognized the Missouri River valley which we followed into St Louis.  I grabbed my bag and my rental car, and hit the road.

US 61 in Missouri

I took US 70 west from the airport to Wentzville, then US 61 north to Hannibal.  There are only two things of note along the way – one, Missouri drivers are a bunch of oblivious jerks.  I never saw so many impatient tailgaters in my life.  Road rage may have been born in the west, but it is alive and well-rooted in St Louis.  Simply stated, following too close is one of the most dumb-assed things a driver can do.  Then, once on US61, there was a wreck that had traffic backed up quite some distance – maybe a mile or a half mile.  A truck had gone off the road and down an embankment.  It was upside down (or at least on its side) as I went by.  I couldn’t look too closely (got to keep your eyes and mind on the road, you know).  Once past that, it was smooth sailing all the way to Hannibal and then to Brookfield on US36.

I stopped in Hannibal at a MoDot visitors’ center – they claimed to have road maps of almost all 50 states.  I really wanted to ask for a copy of everything they had – but settled for those states near to the ones I was driving through on this trip.  I have an almost complete collection of American states’ road maps – but they are getting dated.  So I will try to get new copies.  This Welcome Center on US61 in Hannibal gave me a good start on that project.  I use a GPS these days, but always carry paper maps for back-up.  Sam Clemens’ parents are probably buried in Hannibal, and it was my plan to stop and try to find them, although I didn’t get that done as I was short on time when I came back through the next day.  I had done something else instead; i.e, visited Marceline.

Dan's Farm

I arrived at my cousin’s farm near Brookfield in time for supper; we talked for quite some time about his collections of different things – he likes old stuff, including model trains and old farm equipment.  We spent some time perusing an old farm and industrial equipment catalog from back around the turn of the 19^th century – and he was able to show me some of the things that were available new in that catalog that he has now that they are not so new.

Marceline Main Street

Next morning, we continued our visit for a little while and then I started off toward Indiana.  My first stop heading east on US 36 was at Marceline, Missouri.  This is a Santa Fe railroad town, and Walt Disney’s parents moved their family there when Walt was little.  Disney’s memories of that town became the basis and inspiration for Main Street in the Disneyland parks.  He came back sometime in the late 1940s and photographed Marceline’s main street, then used those photos to plan Main Street in the Anaheim park.  It has changed a lot since then, as have most “main streets” in small town America.  I had a really great pork tenderloin sandwich at Ma Vic’s Corner Café downtown, then got back on the road toward Indiana.

The weather was sunny and I set the cruise control at the “right” speed and settled in with my tunes for the 6 hour drive to western Indiana.  I crossed the Mississippi into Illinois, which looked about like it always does (Illinois, I mean) and kept on toward Attica, Indiana. My route followed I-72 to I-74 at Champaign, I-74 to Veedersburg, IN and then north on US 41 to Attica.  I arrived at about 8:00 pm and my cousin Chris grilled some beef and we had a good dinner and talked for a while.  

Indiana Road Buggy

The next morning, we got his 1973 Pontiac Lemans going (or he did while I watched) and we drove the river road for a ways, then circled back to Attica and crossed the Wabash to Williamsport, and drove the back roads to Mudlavia (a ruin now).  It had been a popular resort in the area in the early 20^th Century – but the hotel caught fire and that was about the end of the “good times” at Mudlavia.  I saw the waterfalls in downtown Williamsport, and we spent a couple of hours roaming around the flea market at Veedersburg.

Road trip booty

Chris had just made some dandelion wine using our late-grandfather’s recipe – and it is crystal clear and beautiful.  I don’t know how it tastes… yet.  But Chris gave me the first bottle I think, and I brought it home.  So sometime this holiday season, we will break it open and have a taste of my Grandpa’s wine. Chris also provided me with a jar of his famous barbecue sauce.

At one time there was a brickyard at Veedersburg (I don’t know if it is still there or not) and it was the supplier of perhaps the most famous bricks ever fired in the USA – the ones that paved the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!  There is still a ceremonial remnant of that brick racetrack at Indy – a narrow strip of them right at the finish line.  They keep a supply of the original bricks nearby to replace any that get damaged, so the “history” and heritage of the Brickyard can be preserved.  That may be the most fascinating thing I learned on this entire trip.

About mid-afternoon, after Chris fed me again, I headed on east on Indiana 28 to Muncie, Indiana. It had clouded up and was raining for the first time on this road trip, but the roads were still good and I moved along OK until a detour north of Indianapolis sent me 30 miles out of my way (give or take).  My college roommate Chad lives in Muncie, so we had a nice visit with Thai food, and a good movie.  Next morning, I visited with still another Ball State friend over breakfast, and mid-morning headed toward Brownsville, Indiana to see my Aunt Pearl and cousins Marilyn and Lowell.

Me and Nelson!

Late afternoon, I got on the road toward Batesville, where my cousins Nelson and Nan live.  The drive between the Connersville area and Batesville is a beautiful one – through wooded hills and over streams, past lakes.  It’s one of the prettiest places in Indiana I think.  The roads are fun too – lots of hills and curves, so a “driver” can have a lot of fun on them.

Indiana back country

We all went over to Oldenburg, Indiana for supper at a German restaurant there, then back at Nelson’s we watched a good movie before calling it a night.  Somewhere during the evening and along the way I lost my reading glasses, and although my very nice cousin offered hers, I stopped at a drug store the next morning and bought two replacement pairs.  Both of which are wrong (too strong).

On Friday morning, my route took me across south-central Indiana, through my family’s original (Indiana) country in Brown County, and then on to St Louis.  In Brown County, I took some time to visit the site of my great grandparents’ farm, where several generations of our McKinney ancestors had lived and died.  The farm itself is no longer there and the land belongs to someone else that has it gated off.  I took a few photos of the area and our family cemetery before going on toward Illinois.  It’s such a beautiful place, I go back every chance I get.

Brown County near Story, IN

The drive back to St Louis was uneventful, just normal super-slab driving and ticking off mile after mile.  I love driving the American two-lanes, but if you need to get some place in a hurry, the interstate system is the way to go. The old federal highways are for moseying.  

I grabbed a sandwich to keep me going until I got to my cousin Greg’s in Defiance, MO, where Shari had cooked some great chili for supper.  My uncle Fred and cousin Linda (and Tom) were also there for the evening.  I met Greg and Shari’s cat (Simba) who is in fact crazier than my own cat.  The next morning, after talking with Greg and Shari a while longer, I moved my show over to Uncle Fred’s apartment in O’Fallon, and we talked and went to Red Lobster for lunch.  After that, it was time to go to the airport.

I got there very early, and the flight was delayed about 40 minutes.  So I had a nice, long wait in the terminal.  The weather was CAVU all the way to Phoenix.  The pilots chased the sun but never caught it.  Where’s Concorde when you need her?  I was a bit uncomfortable in a window seat – I should have grabbed the aisle when I had the chance.  But my two row-mates were both “little” people and they were both quiet, so those were pluses. The flight was almost on time into Phoenix after all.

Can't wait to hit the road again... maybe Tennessee and the Natchez Trace!