A New Wander, Day 7: St Robert, Missouri, to Morillton, Arkansas

  This post is the sixth for this Wander. You really should read them in order. You'll find Part One here, and here's a link to the photo album for this trip. 

 This morning's drive from St Robert, Missouri was exactly the kind of driving I love, the main reason I come on wandering trips like this. Good, well-maintained winding roads, not much traffic, a little up-and-down elevation, clear skies and cool-enough temperatures. The first few miles were a little tense for me, as the dashboard indicator said my engine coolant level was low. I just had the sensor for that replaced (because it would show me that message all the time without actually being the least bit low), so I kept an eye on the temperature guage, which didn't budge, and before I came to a place where I could pull over, the idiot light went out. If it happens again I'm going to have to have the sensor replaced again.

 We didn't have breakfast this morning; neither of us was hungry. I stopped for some coffee at a convenience store, then we headed on down through rural Missouri to the town of Hartsville, where we located the marker showing that a local spot (actually out in somebody's field a little northeast of the marker) was the center of the United States' population at the time of the 2020 census. (I assume that if they'd accurately counted all the minorities in Texas back then, the spot would be maybe 30 or 40 miles to the southwest, but hey, this spot's official and it's all really not worth discussing.)

 We continued listening to our audiobook, Crashed, and finished it just before we got to our hotel this evening. Not great literature by any means, but an entertaining whodunit. There are a total of eight books featuring the same "detective," a professional burglar with, of course, a heart of gold, so we've checked out the next in the series to listen to starting tomorrow.

Buffalo River Canyon in the Ozarks

 We cruised back into the Ozark Mountains, stopping first at Arkansas' "Grand Canyon." It's actually the Buffalo River canyon, about two thousand feet from the tops of the surrounding mountains to the mean water level. There seems to be a lot of smoke in the air; maybe from those Canadian wild fires? I haven't heard any more about it since it stopped affecting our national media centers in New York City and Washington DC. Makes me feel a part of the Great Ignored Center of the nation, places to be dismissed as insignificant flyover country. This is why the Radical Right fringe of morons is so ready to dismiss the national media. One of the reasons, anyway: their own gullibility combined with stupidity and ignorance helps, too, as they sit on their home computers "doing their own research."

 But I digress. 

 We continued south through the mountains to a dirt-road turnoff for Falling Waters Waterfall. (Yes, these hillbillies spend a lot of time thinking up names for things.) It's where a small creek drops about eight feet over a dramatic precipice into a pool that's deep enough to permit diving and swimming. Despite its remoteness, there were about a dozen people there. It looked like a very nice place to spend an afternoon, but of course we weren't interested in spending much time there. Just went to see it, & take a couple of pictures.

 Coming away from there, we had no internet signal. I'd picked out a route on my paper map, but unfortunately the area was right on the fold and the fold had torn, so I couldn't read the road numbers. We got back to a pavement and headed south, but that road eventually turned east and then north. At one point we passed a county line, and I could locate our position on the map from that. I continued going what was actually the wrong way (because, by then, it was the shortest way back to where we wanted to go) and we arrived in Morillton, Arkansas, where we're spending the night. There's a car museum here that I want to see. It doesn't open until 10AM, but we figured we could do our laundry in the morning while we waited for it to open. (Tuesday is the day I'd planned on doing laundry from the start of the trip, as I always pack enough for one week. Today is one week on the road.)

 We checked into the Morillton Motel and cranked up the AC. There's no TV in the room because, apparently, there was a hell of a storm here last night. We noticed big puddles of water and some trees down in the area. The restaurant we'd picked first for dinner, not far from the hotel, was closed, apparently because they've lost power. (The power poles along the road leading to the restaurant are being held up by the lines; they're leaning away from the road with big cracks a few feet above ground level.) 

 The hotel, for other reasons, is something of a dump. We had no towels; when they provided some, they proved to be of the lowest possible quality. There was no handle on the inside of the bathroom door; the toilet ran and ran unless you reset the handle; the keys didn't work and had to be re-done. But the beds were clean and comfortable, so that was the main thing. But you kind of expect more for the not inexpensive price they charge.

 While I was waiting for Roland to come out and go to dinner, I checked the weather for Tulsa. My plan was that we would get to Muskogee (or so) tomorrow night, then spend Wednesday and Thursday nights in Tulsa. But Wednesday's high is predicted to be 109, and Thursday's will be 104. We discussed this over dinner and have decided to cut our trip short. I believe we will get into Oklahoma tomorrow evening, probably to around Talequah, maybe even farther; then we're a day's drive from home. I may even be home in time to see the US play St Kitts & Nevis in the Gold Cup at 8:30 that evening. 

 Fingers crossed.

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A New Wander, Day 6: St Louis to St Robert

  This is part five of many. You really should read them in order. You'll find Part One here, and here's a link to the photo album for this trip. 

 This turned out to be a very easy-going day. Unfortunately, it was hot enough when we started that I didn't bother putting the top down at all, but other than that and a problem with access to downtown St Louis, it's been a relaxing day.

 I started off by trying to go see some of the sights of downtown St Louis, which I've never been to. I figured that, it being Sunday, there'd be very few people down there and it'd be easy to park near things like the sculpture garden and the city garden and the other park-related places they have there.

 Google Maps routed us along Collinsville Road. Turns out that when I thought I was telling it not to avoid highways, I was actually turning on the "avoid highways" instruction. My bad. Apparently there are no frontage roads for it to direct us down. Anyway, I finally started ignoring its proposed route until I got to the exit for downtown off Interstate 70; from which it directed us down a road that was closed for construction. Then it took us two blocks over and south, and all the cross-streets going to the area I wanted to go to were closed off with barricades. After circling around the area for fifteen or twenty minutes, I finally saw a sign saying that today was Pride Fest. So the area was off-limits to mere tourists who didn't want to pay to get in; and of course parking required a hefty fee.

 Okay; so the attractions of downtown St Louis will have to wait for a future visit. I drove off to get a carton of cigarettes, which are cheaper in Missouri than Texas by about $10. Sadly, the place I stopped only had one carton of my brand, so that's all I could get. Then we headed off to the west, and for the first time on this trip, we started an audiobook, a slightly glib murder mystery called Crashed, which involves a professional burglar who gets blackmailed into providing security for a porno film being made by the heir to an organized crime syndicate. We're 20 chapters in after today's drive, and it's amusing but cliché-ridden.

 One of the first stops I'd planned after St Louis was a big model-train exhibit in some town west of the city. It doesn't open until noon on Sundays, so we skipped that. I drove instead across the river into Warren County, the last county to visit in the state of Missouri. So that makes 39 states now where I've been to all the counties. I stopped at the first gas station I came to and checked the map for a route to the next planned stop, and as a result we crossed all of Warren County, then headed south, back across the Missouri River, on local highways. 

 For lunch, we found a Greek restaurant in the town of Belle. Before we left, I posted this review on Google Maps:

Wow. Can't believe the best gyro I've ever had was to be found in this quaint little family restaurant in the middle of Missouri, just over the hill from the edge of nowhere. The pita had a slight sweetness to it; the meat was I Mean perfectly done; the veggies were as fresh as can be, and the feta tastes like Granny makes it out back.

 It really was that good. Apparently I'm not the first to discover this; there are several reviews by people from St Louis that indicate they think it's worth the 90-minute drive from the city. Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, but it is excellent.

 

 After lunch, we moseyed south and west to Ha-Ha-Tonka State Park, where there are the ruins of a castle on a bluff overlooking the lake. It's not actually a castle, of course, just a big-ass house some rich guy from Kansas City built around the turn of the last century, because he liked the lay of the land. He bought 5,000 acres and put up his country palace, finishing it just before he died in a traffic accident in 1906. Then, during World War II, the house and stables burned and the house was abandoned. The water tower he had built burned in the 1970s, and at some point soon after that the family gave the wreck (and the 5,000 acres) to the state of Missouri, which cleaned it up and made it a state park and tourist attraction. 

 

Castle Ruins

 It sits, as I said, on a bluff overlooking a lake. The bluff is perhaps 700 feet high, so it's quite a sight, and they've put in a number of overlooks. I could hear loud music playing on the beach by the lakeshore, and see dots that I think must've been kayakers far below. It was about a five-hundred-foot walk up a slight rise from the parking lot, but Roland felt unable to make the trek, so I went alone.

 

 After that, we headed down to Lebanon, Missouri. There's nothing in the way of attractions there, but I had calculated that it was about as far as we'd be able to get after leaving St Louis (when that was going to be on Monday) and still get a hotel. Beyond Lebanon are a lot of miles of very rural highway with no major towns, and any motels we might come across would be hit-or-miss. So we stopped in Lebanon at a Denny's and looked up local hotels, and found that almost all of them are 30 miles east, near Fort Leonard Wood, a huge army training base; I guess all the trainees have family always coming to visit, so all the motels are there.

 

 And now so are we. 

 

 We decided on dinner at Ruby Tuesday, which is either very good or very bad, depending on the flip of a coin. Close by that restaurant, though, we spotted a "pizzeria & pub" called Poppa's or Pappa's or Pappo's or something. We neither of us wanted pizza but we figured that the "& pub" part ensured other things on the menu. It turned out to be a good choice. I had a meatball calzone while Roland had a meatball marinara bowl. Both were very good, and the service was outstanding. We were content and able to return to our room to watch Jason Bourne movies. 

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