Day 7

I first want to start by thanking Nicole and her dog Snoppy for thier awesome hospitality! Haley has a friend in LA, Cassie, who’s mother lives in Kansas City. She was kind enough to allow us to stay in her home while passing through. A great night’s sleep.

A follow up to the tornado warning last night. There was a confirmed tornado northeast of the city. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries with minimal damage. There were a lot of power outages though. Hurricanes are one thing. Because you can see them coming and know to get out of the way. Tornados just randomly drop out of the sky and clean house.

We thanked Nicole and Snoppy and headed out for coffee and breakfast at a local shop recommended by Cassie. It is a very nice shop with a central/south American menu.

I had a Mocha with a dash of orange citrus. Very interesting flavor. I may have to borrow this one at my shop. I also had the barista educate me on making a Cubano. I just wanted to make sure I was doing it right. I also had an apple empanada. All very good.

We passed downtown KC and headed to St. Louis.

I can tell tou one thing about Missouri, thier roads are garbage! We have traveled across the US through several states and the roads in Missouri have been the worst. Every road and highway we turned onto, seemed to be under construction. The roads have divits and ruts that pull the car left and right. The jersey barriers gave little room for error. Very stressful. We managed to make it to our lunch destination in St Louis. This place was recommended by Cassies boyfriend, Zack, who grew up in St. Louis.

They had a special today, smoked trout salad sandwich. It was delicious!

Zack also recommended a place to get custard.

I got the Mississippi Mud. Yes, it has peanut butter in it!

We noticed St. Louis has a lot a green space and parks. Very pretty and a lot of people seemed ro be enjoying the beautiful day. We made our way back to the highway and saw the Arch as we headed to Indianapolis.

We had one small driving incident today. Traffic was a little heavy, but moving along at a pretty good speed. I was trailing a truck that was making a pass in the left lane. All of a sudden the carcass of a blown truck tire was right in front of me that the truck in front had straddled. There was no way of avoiding it and I didn't want to swerve and hit another car or run off the road. I hit it head on at full speed. It made a horrendous noise and pieces blew out the back of the car onto cars behind us. We heard a noise from under the car and needed to pull over to check the damage. The plastic engine undercover had been completely ripped out and part of it had been lodged in the suspension which was dragging making the noise we were hearing. I was able to reach under the car and remove the broken piece. Fortunately, no major damage was done and we were able to continue. The rest of the drive went without incident. We arrived at our hotel in Indianapolis.

We lost another hour crossing into the eastern and final time zone of our travel. So, it was late and we were tired. We decided to go to the hotel restaurant and get a light dinner. I had a cobb salad.

Another day done of driving with one more day to go. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything planned for tomorrow. So, we’ll have to play it by ear where we will stop. We plan to finish our cross country trip tomorrow night. See you tomorrow for the final edition.