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| One last view of the City Museum from below -- we drove past it on our way to the zoo. |
St. Louis to Mammoth Caves
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| Look at this crazy thing. Giant anteater! |
After another hearty breakfast, we sadly said goodbye to the
Drury Inn and headed over to the St. Louis Zoo.
Unfortunately we couldn’t walk there.
After a lovely day with no driving at all, we paid the price by getting
caught in various construction detours and, later, zoo traffic, but with the
help of our GPS we eventually arrived in Forest Park, home of the zoo.
It was another beautiful day – sunny and low 80s – and the
zoo was a great way to spend our morning.
Since it was Saturday, it was pretty crowded, and I was almost wishing
for a little of the ghost-town feel that we’d had in Hannibal.
We wanted to get on the road by around 1:00, so we hit upon
the brilliant scheme of withholding lunch until we left the zoo. That eventually got the kids out of there
without a battle (possibly because they were weak from hunger). Then it was our usual lunch buffet in the
car: peanut butter and bread, peanut butter and tortilla, peanut butter and
banana, or peanut butter and apple.
(Also, we have sun nut butter.)
We had around a 5 ½ hour drive to Kentucky, so we decided to
stop for dinner. (The vision of a
restaurant is one thing that really keeps the kids going these days.) However, it never seems to fail that when dinnertime
arrives, we’re in the middle of nowhere with nothing to be seen but farms and
trees. In this case, we eventually
happened upon a Dairy Queen – not Bob’s and my first choice, but one that was
met with much enthusiasm from the back seat.
Did you know the kids’ meals there come with a whole soft serve ice
cream cone? We are thinking of our
friend Jamie, who practically had Dairy Queen cater his wedding.
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| Elephant mom & babies |
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| Butterfly garden |
We got to Mammoth Cave National Park with some daylight
still left. Although the cave is of course
the main attraction here, there are also miles of unspoiled countryside, and we
saw several deer and turkeys. In stark
contrast to Hannibal, the Mammoth Cave campground was hopping. It was a Saturday night, and people were
living it up. Still, we had a nice large
site among the trees, and speedily set up our tent for the last time.
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| The inevitable carousel |
***
From Bob:
We have not crossed so many states in one day since we
entered Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah again. This time is it was Illinois and Indiana (both
of which we passed through on the northern run), sandwiched between Missouri
and Kentucky.
We
definitely did cross the Ohio River this time, a few hours after the
Mississippi. Aside from that it was an
uneventful drive, save for the mess getting out of Forest Park in St.
Louis. It was a beautiful summer day –
mild for August – and everyone seemed to want to go to the zoo.
We have
been very fortunate weather-wise. It is
not oppressive at all. The mid- to high
80s feel fine when humidity is low. We
have been sparing on the A/C in the car and not suffering too much for
that.
We have
not calculated our gas efficiency yet, but we’ll have to factor in an
interesting (maybe) car-related note that some people may have realized: The
gas has changed as we move back east.
Somewhere along the line out west the regular gasoline became to 85
octane, though the prices were similar all along the way. I thought this was strange, but figured maybe
I was imagining things; but, behold, we get back close to the Mississippi and
the octane for regular gas goes back up to 87, where I always thought it had
been. What happened to those two
octane? Did they get lost in the high altitude? Why was I paying just as much for 85 as I am
now for 87? Can I get a refund?
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