Road Trip '08 - Day 7

Jefferson City, MO to STL and back again
______ miles, ______ hours
Total miles so far:
Total time on raod: 39 hours, 11 minutes
States driven through: Missouri
Dead deer seen on side of road: 32
Dead mice: 1
Smokies: 52
Cranky Canadian Border Guards: 1
Royal Canadian Mounties seen: 0

Leslie’s flight didn’t leave until 4, so we were able to sleep late before attacking the final leg of Road Trip ’08.

I got up a little early and cooked us some breakfast: sausage and pancakes with our special Canadian syrup. It wasn’t up to say, Keeneland’s standards, but it was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Leslie made her flight no problem and I made it back home no problem.

A few stats:
My car drove: 2664.1 miles
We averaged: 28.6 mpg
We averaged 55.1 mph
We used: 93.5 gallons of gas

Road Trip '08 - Day 6

Cleveland, Ohio to Jefferson City, MO
______ miles, ______ hours
Total miles so far:
States driven through: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri
Dead deer seen on side of road: 31
Smokies: 48
Cranky Canadian Border Guards: 1
Royal Canadian Mounties seen: 0

What a nice, sunny Ohio morning! It’s perfect driving weather, or at least it would be if three quarters of Ohio’s highways weren’t under construction and being patrolled by 8 gazillion cops.

Speaking of cops, I’m actually kind of digging the Ohio Highway Patrol’s logo.

I drove the first two hours, then Leslie took over, then I promptly proceed to almost choke to death on a Nerd Rope.

For lunch, we stopped off at the Cracker Barrel on exit 104 (Leslie’s fav). It was good, although the pre-meal game (“Skip the Tee”) knocked my self-esteem level down a few notches. Apparently, despite my high ACT score, I am an egg-no-raw-moose (I left four tees). Leslie, on the other hand, succeeded in removing all but one, thus earning the title “genius.” I wouldn’t put too much stock in it though; it’s just a wooden triangle’s opinion.

I climbed back in behind the wheel and Indiana and Illinois went by fairly quickly. Before you knew it, we were in Missouri and soon enough were pulling into my driveway.

My roommate moved out the day after we left and he didn’t clean his dishes or his bathroom before he left, but other than that and my now-overgrown lawn, Leslie seemed to like my house.

There was also the small matter of the mouse in the mouse trap, but better a dead mouse in a trap than a live one in her bed.

Road Trip ’08 - Day 1

Jefferson City, MO to Lexington, KY
506 miles; 7 hours 49 minutes
States driven through: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky
Dead deer seen on side of road: 8
Smokies: 6

Leslie’s flight into STL was early, so we got a nice head on the trip.

It rained about 75 percent of the drive through Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. That didn’t keep us from stopping on the side of the road and posing for pictures at the Welcome to _____ sign.

We officially left God’s Time and are now operating on Eastern Time.

Since we were passing through Louisville, we placed a quick cal to the expatriated Kentuckians, the Todds. They, of course, were not home.

While in L-Ville, we took a quick detour and went to see Churchill Downs the site of the Kentucky Derby (to be run in a few weeks). It was HUGE, but it seemed out of place since it is smack dab in the middle of urban Louisville. We were about 45 minutes late to tour the museum and shop, so we settled on just taking some pix of the exterior.

Onto Lexington and home of the Wildcats, the University of Kentucky. Lex is very hard to navigate, but we found our way to campus. Leslie almost decided to switch from ‘Cuse to UK, but thankfully she talked herself out of it.