We came a long way to St. Louis...

We left Asheville around 7:30 this morning because today was a really long driving day. In our first half hour on the road, we saw 2 hot air balloons floating over the mountains. We made really good time despite the huge thunder storm that rolled through Monterey, TN around 11:00. It was so dark you would have thought the sun was setting and then the skies opened up and unleashed a ton of rain. A lot of people pulled over to the side of the road but Scott kept rolling and the worst was over by around 11:30 although we hit pockets of rain until the after 2:00 eastern time. The sun reappeared while we were in Kentucky and was with us the rest of the afternoon.

We ate lunch while we were rolling and we stopped to stretch our legs somewhere in Illinois. There was a great see saw at the rest area that all of us could get on and we had fun playing for about 15 minutes. The kids kept themselves pretty entertained all day. I taught them to play poker and blackjack and they did that for well over an hour, betting with pennies. We have seen 36 of the states in the license plate game and I let Luke win at Scrabble.

In Illinois, we were coming up on another camper hauling a suburban from NC and as we passed, we realized that it was one of Scott's co-workers who will also be in Yellowstone sometime in the next 2 weeks. It was real fun to see someone we knew on the road.

We arrived in St. Louis around 5 o'clock and had a fun time trying to find a place to park. The Mississippi is nearly 3 feet above flood stage and the river front road (Wharf St.) is under water. This is normally where oversized vehicles park and there was a Cardinals game tonight so all of the surface lots were filling up. We finally found a place and walked over to the Arch. It was after our normal dinner time so we gave the kids granola bars and went underground to tour the museum and get our tickets to the top. Luke was afraid that the ride to the top would be like a roller coaster with the uphill portion clicking and slowly rising and then a really fast descent. Obviously it wasn't at all like that but the comment Lorelei made about being in trouble if the arch fell freaked him out a little so we went back to the bottom pretty quickly.

Junior ranger badges were finished and after some photos outside, we headed back to the camper to go get checked in at the campground. By that time it was after 9 pm central time and well past the kids bedtime. We ate a dinner of cereal and fruit and put everyone to bed. We have about an 8 hour drive ahead of us tomorrow to make it to Lincoln, Nebraska.

No pictures on flickr tonight as I am just too tired. Hopefully tomorrow night.