7-4 AMERICA!

Happy Fourth of July! What better place to spend it than in St. Louis? First things first, the Annheiser Busch Brewery and headquarters required our investigation. The plant is huge and very ornate. The tour itself is free and they give you free beer at the end! Great start to the day.

Clydesdales

Renard the Fox

Continuing, we drove by Forest Park and the St. Louis Basilica and spent some time downtown at the Arch. There was a big festival going on and we got to see part of the air show. The courthouse where the Dred Scott decision was made was also right there. Afterwards we went to a picnic, ate lots of food, played a ton of lawn sports, then went to watch the fireworks. America, the beautiful! Thanks so much to John for giving us a great holiday weekend!

Freedom platter

7-3 Midwest zest

What would an American road trip be without seeing one of the patriarchs of our modern nation? Since we were in his land, we figured we should visit Lincoln's tomb. It's an impressive granite monument that houses his remains and those of his family members as well.

Midwest storms are something else but the van proved that she can handle anything Mother Nature throws at her. Sheets of rain came down as we approached St. Louis, probably the heaviest rain we've driven through all trip. We made it safely into the city, seeing the Arch and Busch Stadium through the downpour. Mike and Ben's cousin John welcomed us, I myself becoming an honorary cousin (it made introductions a lot easier).

7-2 Chachification of Chitown

Hot town, summer in the city. Chicago had lots to do as we rode the L train into town, visited Millennium Park, the Taste of Chicago food festival, and Pizano's for some authentic deep dish pizza. In the park was the classic Cloud Gate sculpture, some giant water fountain towers, and all sorts of gardens and sculptures.

Hank Shocklee of The Bomb Squad was playing some techno/dubstep music at the pavilion, providing us some shade and sweet jamz.

The Taste had foods from around the world (and free samples of Crush soda!!!) so we soaked in a lot of the smells.

 

All the sightseeing sure works up an appetite. Pizano's had some great deep dish and the best waiter ever, Uncle Chach. He told us about all the local bars, talked sports with Mike and Ben (I couldn't really add to that conversation), and gave us a free dessert! He Chachified everything and made sure we knew there was no waiter like him anywhere else. So far he's right. Thank you so much to Mark and Bernadette for hosting us and telling us how to get around!

7-1 If you build it, we will probably check it out

The hot sun of Iowa didn't deter us from seeing some of the state's gems. For all you moving picture fans out there, we ran the bases at the Field of Dreams and I pretended to be good at sports for a few minutes. After that we had to visit the headquarters of one of our favorite TV programs, American Pickers. Sadly, Danielle wasn't there as she had to be in Tennessee for the opening of their new store, but we did get to see the shop and some of the cool items they've bought. 

We made it to the Windy City after stopping in Wisconsin (might as well check off another state) and are looking forward to a day on the town. Mark and Bernadette welcomed us graciously into their home, giving us a great launch pad for taking Chi-town by storm.

6-30 Food for thought

More driving today, going through Omaha, Des Moines, and Cedar Rapids. Can’t say there’s much to take photos of out here, mostly field and plain. The major cities are pretty small. While not exciting, these states are feeding the nation. Thank you, Middle America. 

This is our final night of camping until we get home. It’s bittersweet, but I guess we need to be re-acclimated to society at some point.

6-29 Arts and eats

A lot of windshield time was clocked today, cruising through Grand Island, Lincoln, and seeing the odd car art sculptures of Carhenge outside Alliance, NE. It was a pretty interesting use of old vehicles and their parts to make a pseudo-Stonehenge, a big salmon, dinosaur, flowers, and other arrangements. 

We had a feast of a dinner at an Olive Garden in Lincoln, using to their full potential a pair of gift cards I have been stashing for such an occasion. We even gussied up for the event by putting pants on instead of gym shorts. It’s the little things.

6-28 Rock On

We covered a lot of ground today, both above and below the earth’s crust. On our way to Mt. Rushmore, we saw the work-in-progress that is the Crazy Horse Memorial. Not a whole lot happening there other than his face so far, but it should be pretty epic when it is done.

Mt. Rushmore looked as iconic as all the pictures make it out to be. It is pretty inspiring to see four giant heads carved into the side of a mountain. 

From there we went underground, visiting the Wind Cave National Park not far down the road. This is the 5^th longest cave system in the world, consisting of around 130 miles of known passages and still finding more.  We took one of the five offered tours and got to see a lot of the most prominent traits of the cave system, such as box work, frost work, and popcorn.

Frost work

Box work

Popcorn

The Badlands were our home for the night. The whole drive there looks like simple prairie until it drops off into the rock and mud formations that created the formations. It was like driving through an alien landscape. I did hear one man say that they filmed the asteroid scenes of the movie Armageddon at the Badlands. Peering out at the landscape we spied a female bighorn, one of only about 100 at the park that are being reintroduced to the area. Sadly, we didn’t see any rattlesnakes (sorry Eli).

Today we officially saw every US license plate, finally spotting Kentucky after a long search. We also got 5 Canadian provinces checked off as well. High-fives all around.