Vignettes from the Road (Part II)

It started late today. We didn’t really get to bed until about 11:30 pm, between blog posting, cleaning up, and wrestling out the confusion with the desk clerk. So when the wake-up call came at 6:30, I just hung it up and slept for an hour more. We needed it.

However, there’s a few things about the St. Robert Missouri Days Inn that you should know, should you feel the desire to ever stay there:

1) They messed up our reservation – badly. Wrong address, wrong credit card, wrong discount (AAA) – we were lucky to get our room right.
2) The deadbolt in our room didn’t work. We put a chair against the door just for prudence’s sake.
3) Somebody threw up on one of the chairs in our room, which stained it. They tried really hard to get the stain out and failed. My feeling is, personally, if you’ve got a stained chair in your room, it needs to be replaced.
4) The complimentary breakfast is no compliment if it’s gone before you wake up.
5) The first sight that greets you when you walk into the office is a sign on the public restroom that says “Out Of Order.” It still wasn’t working when we left, which is too damned long.
6) That’s right next to the complimentary breakfast, by the way. Ewwwww.
7) And just to make it all surreal, a dwarf waited on us at checkout. I wouldn’t mention it except that after everything else was so wrong, this just capped it off nicely.

No, I DIDN’T take a picture.

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Waynesville, Missouri has changed a LOT since we lived here from 1989 to 1993. Exit 156 on I-44 (where we exited for downtown Waynesville and our house) used to have just houses, a Casey’s quick stop, and a Cinema 8 (which was built the year before we left.)

Now there’s entire mini-malls built around the site, which has revitalized Waynesville proper. St. Robert (a traditional strip town around a military base’s main gate) has also been revitalized and cleaned up. The third Wal-Mart in the town’s 20 year history has been built (a new Super-Wal-Mart this time) and moved the city center a mile north in the process.

We stopped by our old house and were sorely dis- appointed. The site was trashed, and in dire need of repair. Very sad.

And while Julian didn’t remember much of Waynesville, he had a memory flashback as we passed St. James Missouri just past Rolla. Ariane used to have two friends who spoiled Julian rotten as a baby. He remembered Terry used to live in St. James.

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One of the real historical treats of the expedition was finding an actual section of old Route 66 between Exit 163 and the Highway J exit between Rolla and St. Robert. This is actual, unrestored Route 66 here, in some disrepair but quite drivable. The 1920’s era construction techniques played havoc with my suspension, but it was well worth it.

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Lunch was fun – White Castle sliders. My wife thinks the frozen one you can get in the store are just the same, but Julian and I both think they’re better in their natural habitat – fresh steamed from the store.

The fries suck, though. Ick.

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Second major stop of the trip (after re-touring Waynesville) was the St. Louis Arch. I wanted to stop in the gift shop and get a little souvenir arch for my collection of souvenir landmarks (I have tiny copies of the Golden Gate Bridge, Sears Tower, World Trade Center, Eiffel Tower, Empire State, and such) and Julian wanted to go up in the Arch itself. But as we entered (and security was as tight as any airport when we entered – metal detectors and everything – I had to take off my belt to get through!) they announced that lift tickets were sold out through 5:30pm. (This is being announced at lunchtime.)


So while we didn’t get to go up, we did get some nifty souvenirs, some great photos, and a promise to go back on the way if we can.


Julian got to drive right after we picked up I-55 in Illinois and lost I-70 (those interchanges can be tricky business; and the last thing I wanted was having a teenaged driver panicking in downtown St. Louis – let alone East St. Louis.) The end result; he drove all the way across Illinois top-to-bottom! Did a great job, too.


Well, we made it to the Sofitel and after a bit of confusion (I turned the wrong way on Mannheim road and ended up in Schiller Park – wrong way!) we had dinner at Harry Caray’s and did a little recon for dinner tomorrow (The Ram: an Irish brewpub, which means Julian is driving home.)

More tomorrow.

~~JD~~