Day 4: April 16, 2010 Part Deux

Good Morning from Springfield, Mo! Did you know that Brad Pitt was raised here? True story. Where did I leave off? Oh yes. St. Louis. We drop Katie off at her hotel and get the heck out of dodge. Sadly, it was hours later before we realized we left the Underpants behind. I'm devastated and begin to silently weep. Just kidding on the weeping part. We are totally hitting them on the way home. Here's a picture from the web to whet your undergarment appetite. Dude, they're filthy! That's delightfully gross. You can't see it in the picture, but the little brown sign in front of the tighty whities is handwritten in red marker and says, "Do not touch the underwear!" Okay then. Perhaps they need to build the world's largest washing machine to clean those suckers.

We drove through the Missouri Ozarks last night in the dark. There wasn't a whole lot to see and we really wanted to get some miles behind us. I didn't realize there were rednecks in Missouri. The terrain actually reminded me a little of West Virgina except less hilly and the people weren't as friendly. We had to take a detour through a really, really back road. That was awesome, except for the ratty looking possum that darted across the road. Do you think they have possums in hell? Is anyone's favorite animal the Opossum?

We've learned that Missouri doesn't embrace their Route 66 heritage like Illinois does. They do have Route 66 signs though. Thank the road trip gods for signage. Now that we're out of Illinois, Katie doesn't hate it. I don't think we're going to make it all the way across Oklahoma today. That's ok. There are a couple of really cool places to stay. We tried to stay at two vintage motels last night, but in the first the office was closed and the the second one, which had the most awesome neon sign I'd ever seen was full. :-( We were so tired we stopped at a Courtyard by Marriott. It was a little pricier than we'd have liked but so far we're well below our lodging budget. We check in about 12:30 and the parking lot is full. We ask if they're always this busy and the lady behind the counter says no, they have a couple of groups tonight. Immediately alarmed, Katie asks if they are drunk and rowdy and they girl says she shouldn't think so, it's a Pentecostal Woman's Retreat!! We all bust out in loud guffaws. We go up in the elevator and we see a sign for room service. Katie exclaims in an exaggerated southern voice, "This is a HOtel not no notel MOtel!"

It didn't have any character, it was entirely too pricey, but man those Courtyard beds were comfy.