Today started out late – that’s probably the first thing to know. I… well I slept in – kinda. I don’t sleep a lot these days but when I do sleep I take it for granted so I was running around the hotel early this morning in a tizzy trying to get ready to be up and out by 9am. It ended up 9:30am before I was even leaving ,let alone grabbing Starbucks. As a result… I was running behind all day! Luckily this isn’t an issue this trip – I’ve planned only 6-7 hours of driving each day but… if this were the way back I’d be in trouble! Couple that with the way I’m feeling tired as the timer on my drive ticks down under an hour each day and… well I’m going to just come out with it – I just might switch my return plans. I like this lazy schedule – it’s not nearly as taxing as a nine-hour day of driving – and today with my overall level of readiness mentally… I don’t know if I can even do a nine-hour day of driving. I guess we’ll have to find out – or I’ll have to change plans. Thank goodness for the freedom to do so!
On the positive side of that, though… I was smiling as I hit Kansas City. You see I’ve been keeping a secret from all you readers on this whole “Must eat at a gas station” thing – It was my friend Bubba who suggested the rule – and I groaned when he did it. “Do you know how much delicious food I’ll be missing out on?” I told him, whining. Bubba replied very stoically, as is his nature – “well maybe you should just look ahead of time for restaurants that are also gas stations – like this one in Kansas City. It’s been listed the best BBQ in Kansas more than once – and it’s a gas station.”
So I agreed to the rule – fine. I could find exceptions. I wouldn’t be eating junk each day! I was so happy! Little known to me, however, was that Bubba’s plan was already in motion. The hook had been baited. And I fell right into the trap. You see… here is the restaurant:
And they’re closed on Sundays.
Thwarted. I can hear him laughing all the way from Florida – well played my friend… I may just have to come back through here and try this again some time!!!
Instead… let’s cut to where I instead found my resolve… parked the car… and headed into the Ol’ Faithful – QuikTrip.
Now… I like QuikTrip for a number of reasons – but first and foremost because they generally have healthy food somewhere in the store. This is also, however, exactly where I shot myself in the foot today. After approaching a worker, I explained my plight about the BBQ restaurant. I asked him if they had anything like a pulled-pork sandwich or any best-seller that would really show off for me Kansas City flavor for BBQ given my desire (and failure to find it) – and that’s when… without missing a beat… he said “Oh! We do have BBQ-flavored pork skins!”
His coworker had joined us, probably wondering why I was harassing her young employee, and opened her mouth as well. “Wait wait wait” I cried out, both hands up. I explained that… whatever she said was their best seller… I was going to have to eat. I told her about yesterday’s lunch, about my previous endeavors, and said “I know it’s not going to be healthy… but I also don’t want to eat junk food for every single lunch if there is something, anything, you can recommend that’s generally healthy.”
She thought for a minute, then smiled – “I guess a chicken wrap?” she said, and I smiled back at her before thanking her – phew. Day two… and aside for the pork skins (which I did try – and… yuck.) I had a pretty good lunch overall.
As I set my GPS to navigate my way back out of Kansas City… I was reminded that my friend Abby had recommended I take a look at the “fountains in Kansas City”. This was somewhat vague, but after putting in “Kansas City Fountain” into my GPS I found a wealth of them all over the main parks in town. I didn’t get a picture because traffic near the city center was quite busy thanks to some construction and some type of convention, but some of the fountains were running red water today – I think for the KC Chiefs football team, and it was a pretty fun sight to see. I had no idea Kansas City was such a big place for outdoor fountains! It is! You should stop by and see it sometime!
It was about an hour outside of Kansas City that I realized I’d forgotten about boba. Luckily though after fumbling around again trying to get things to work I finally just asked my car’s navigation assistance (Google) if it would plot me a route to boba before the hotel and sure enough – I was on my way. I’d get a cup in St. Louis right before the hotel – and everything was looking up!
Everything but the Americana, at least. Day #2 and still no side-of-the-road attractions. I’ve talked to a few people, maybe this is a 90’s kid thing at this point – but I’ll always remember the weird attractions with the gift shops full of homemade fudge, polished rocks for you to collect, pop guns, and all the silly things you’d toss in a drawer and forget about the minute you got home.
Today, however, I didn’t fail you guys. I found one. Just before the town of Sweet Springs Missouri… I started seeing billboards – “Come visit the Cheese Store!” “Cheese Curds made on-site!” “One mile off the highway!”. My nostalgia was tingling. This was the mecca I had been imagining, wasn’t it? A “cheese store”?!? In the middle of nowhere?!?
So… I went. I did not take pictures inside – and I didn’t because I felt it wouldn’t be right – unfortunately this place doesn’t present the way you’d hope it would. The store is dark with a drop-ceiling roof, the presentation of goods isn’t the best or the brightest – it looks like someone who has no idea how to sell a product today set up the store in the 80’s and said “yep, good enough” – and they’ve been surviving on the proceeds ever since… and I imagine those must be dwindling these days – at least from what it looks like inside.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. To date this has been the closest thing I’ve found to the tourist attractions of old. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t “dirty”, it just… more like a trip back in time than a trip to a dairy farm. I mean look at this… I even bought some cheese curds. There may not be polished rocks – but there’s rock candy, and all sorts of salsas, fresh made pasta – it’s essentially a farm store – and I hope they last to remodel and become wildly successful someday.
When they do – they can build me a lifesized mouse statue – unfortunately there weren’t any of those today either so I’ve failed another day of goals. Don’t worry though – I can see one from my hotel here in St. Louis – so at least once on this trip you guys will get the ever-elusive selfie from me.
With my belly full of nostalgia, cheese curds, and tortilla wrap – I headed off to St Louis, grabbed boba from a very unassuming road-side shop that also apparently sells Chinese food for some reason, and then headed into the downtown area to find my hotel.
I will say that perhaps it was everything else I’d already eaten today… but this was not a good boba drink. It’s too sugary, the boba almost too chewy. It wasn’t bad, it was the sugar bomb that a boba tea always is, but it just wasn’t… good either. I am not dreaming of coming back here for another one – and that’s a bummer – because it’s on that note that I have a trip update – after a lot of consideration and some long days driving… I”m going to reverse my same trip backwards when I come back to Denver. Rather than strike out and try to hit different cities… I’m going to stick to my same 6-7 hours of driving each day and come back to St. Louis again.
I know, that’s probably boring for readers – I’m sorry for that. I’ll do what I can – but I’m finding myself more and more tired each day and I think safety comes first here – six or seven hours a day on my own driving is about the max I’m willing to safely do. And… it’s not all bad. The hotel here in St. Louis is all paid through the use of Marriott points, something I save up through using two credit cards a year that are Marriott Rewards cards – and I’m staying at probably one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. The shower is as big as my king-sized bed! The room has six windows to the street on a corner unit! It is absolute luxury here – and so I’m coming back on Thursday to see it during the week. Then we’ll book it back west, stop in Kansas City – try the barbecue that was denied to me by the weekend (Ha! Take that, Bubba!) and maybe find some new places along the way, some more nostalgia. No – I’m not going to revisit the cheese shop – stop asking!
And now for some sleep… so I can get up early tomorrow and take a million photos of the St. Louis Arch before I head off on my final day of the eastward drive – and into Oak Ridge Tennessee.
Here’s a hotel pictures dump so you can see what I’m on about. There’s even a record player and 10 records – jazz – just in case my room needs more of a theme.
