The push to St Louis

Thursday, August 15th travel day

I was going to stop along the way, but somewhere along the way, I shifted into just getting there that night.

600 long miles of interstate travel lead me though a lot of beautiful agricultural land from South Dakota across the Missouri River, south along Iowa, and then across the upper third of  Missouri by traveling across state highway 36. Let me say this about state highways. It was nice enough, smooth enough, fast enough, but there are no rest stops and not many gas stations. So fuel up often and take advantage of those gas station potty breaks.

While cruising along I -29, I saw a sign for Stone State Park, so naturally I had to exit and venture off onto some small roads and find this little green space.

It meanders for over a 1,000 acres along side the Big Sioux River and has over looks toward the South Dakota and Iowa border. Beautiful lithe, green trees interlock their arms and arch across the road,  like ballerinas.  It was quite peaceful, like driving through a live, lush  cathedral.  While inching along the narrow road, three deer came bounding across, trotted up the opposite side and then looked back. I was able to get a few shots without getting out of the car. I knew as soon as I opened the door, they would bolt. Mom stared at me from behind a tree and the two fawns were cautious and curious. After I switched out to a telephoto lens, they turned and walked up the hill, somewhat put off with my less than speedy lens swap out.

I made the turn at St. Joseph and plowed on across Missouri, arriving at my brothers house about 10pm. The Garmin GPS died about an hour out from his house and I navigated a dark,rainy night by using the google maps on my IPhone. It was wonderful to sleep in a real bed and wake to someone else already having made coffee. 

Brad and I spent the next two days working on one of his house projects.  Replacing large timbers for the terraced walkway that follows down behind his deck. Meanwhile his wife Becky, filled in the timbered areas with bags of gravel and topped them with large pavers.  We ran some errands and gathered more provisions from Lowes to move on to the next section of his path.  After my two year old Garmin GPS failed me during final approach to a busy metropolitan city, in the dark, in the rain, surrounded by semis...well, I had to take action.  So we went to Best Buy an I upgraded my Garmin.  So far I have been very happy with its performance on the rest of my venture.

It was wonderful to spend a few days with my biggest brother and ponder architectural/structural challenges as we made progress on his terrace. I did need to push off so I could spend a day and a half with my eldest sister- she looks younger than me, but that is another story! My nieces, Sara and Jenny,  who live near Brad and Becky, were able to swing by on Sunday morning and show off their children, so we did get a group shot before I left.

Next stop - the center of Kentucky

Signing off for now