Our first stop of the day was the Meramec Caverns. We did drive by the World’s Largest Gift Shop on the way to the caverns. When we stepped out of the car we were hit with a blast of heat with a big dose of humidity. At the caverns there was a picnic spot along the Meramec River, so we ate lunch before taking a tour. The caverns were nice and cool, which was a relief from the heat outside. The tour lasted about an hour and twenty minutes. The tour guide had two voices. His normal voice and his tour guide voice. The tour guide voice reminded me of the conductors in Japan. They would lower their voice a couple octaves and slow their speech to a deliberate rate. In other words, he was very annoying. It was so 
made that we almost got lapped by a tour that started twenty minutes later than our tour. We would have been lapped had the other tour guide not stopped his group in its tracks. The caverns have the third largest stalagmite in the world. It looked like a big fat blob. So far, we haven’t seen the largest anything. I hope to turn that trend around. As we came out of the caverens that same wave of heat hit us once again, but this time our glasses fogged up instantly. It was so bad my mom couldn’t see.
Soon after we got back on the Interstate we ran into our first traffic jam since leaving Los Angeles. The freeway was completely stopped, but we were lucky to get to an off ramp and bypass the experiment. It seems people in Saint Louis are into physics experiments. This experiment was a pretty bad crash involving two trucks. We were able to see it from a side street along the interstate. You can see two trucks on their sides and the really odd thing was one of the engines was about 50 feet down the road. If we were a few minutes faster, we would have seen the accident or been in it. It took us an hour to detour around it.
We arrived at the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis without any other issues. The Arch is supposed to have RV parking, but we couldn’t find the lot. The lot we did find was filled with cars. So we did what everyone else did and park along the Mississippi River. This is actually a no parking area, and Lisa didn’t like it. She was sure that we would get a ticket or towed away. Yes, the city is going to tow our car with a trailer attached. Lisa always thinks of the worst possible scenario and is sure that it is going to happen. It doesn’t matter what it is, but usually death or dismemberment is involved.My dad wasn’t in favor of stopping to see the Gateway Arch. He mentioned you can see it as you cross the bridge, which reminds me when I was a kid. As a kid, we took these cross country trips often. The itinerary on one of the trip was to include a stop in New York. My mom was looking forward to this stop. But fate got in the way and we weren’t able to stop in New York. We arrived in New York on a Sunday morning and proceeded to drive down Broadway and out of the city. As we were crossing a bridge my dad says, “There it is… There’s the Statue of Liberty.” It was hard to see and looked really small. This made my mom very made, as we toured New York in 30 minutes.
We went into the visitor center at the Arch. It had a nice display of western expansion. They also had a couple of movies, but we opted not to see those. We did take a ride up to the top of the Arch. Today, we are featuring Lisa. Lisa can be a stick in the mud. She gets this from her mom. When we go places, she tends not to want to do things. Not always, but enough to take notice. She just wanted to leave. I wasn’t going to have any of it. We got our tickets and took the ride up to the top. The Arch is 628 feet high. To get to the top, you go through a line that looks like a ride at an amusement park. They even have eight lines. Each line is for a pod that sits 5 people. These pods are small and it looks like the inside of a dryer. The ride up takes 3 minutes. It was worth the effort. The views from the top were magnificent.
From the Gateway Arch, we crossed the Mississippi River to enter Illinois. We made our way Benton, Illinois which is 90 miles from Saint Louis. We arrived at Lisa’s Aunt Lily’s house around 8 PM. Since we are featuring Lisa this entry and the kids were boring today. I have nothing to report on them.Today we travled 403 miles for a total of 1996 for the trip. We spent $98 in gas today. Tomorrow we will be visiting with Lisa’s relatives. There will be a big party tomorrow night. The next few entries will be posted when I can. Lisa’s Aunt doesn’t have internet, so I have to go to a coffee house to connect. The weather here in Benton is 90+ with humidity of about 80%. It is miserable. I really miss the dry heat of So Cal.
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