Boy, the days are really starting to run together now. I left Paducah KY after one night, and not much activity. I needed a day to really rest and that was the perfect place to do that.
The car GPS has been pretty much putting me on the same routes that I’ve been mapping using Google maps on my computer. But, leaving Paducah was interesting. I was on Rt 60W, following a semi. A lot of the road, at first, went thru neighborhoods. No shoulder on the road. Drop offs on each side (so don’t dare swerve or anything!) I thought to myself, this is going to suck if I’m driving on a road like this for 5 hours!
Then we got to the bridges. If you want to look it up, look up Fort Defiance State Park. It’s in the little point of Illinois. So, the first bridge I was on went over the Ohio River from KY to IL, but in IL just for a minute. The second bridge went from IL into MO. There was no shoulder, no extra room, semis going both ways. Whoa! I was glad to get that done.
And then I was in Missouri. I actually stopped in the road to take this photo because there was nobody behind me.
Anyway, today was a longish drive, heading to Springfield MO. There was some heavy rain in spots, and some people didn’t turn their headlights on. I was following a grey van without their lights on and when the rain got really heavy I couldn’t see it. Good thing I knew it was there though!
I saw a surprising number of (unfortunately dead) armadillos along the road. Didn’t expect to see them in the Ozark mountains. Speaking of which, I am learning a lot of geography! I “heard of” the Ozarks but didn’t really think about the fact that I would be driving through them. Really beautiful!
I also saw a couple of box turtles crossing the road – both alive! I think their heads were red – just looked it up – they were three-toed box turtles (Terrapene carolina triunguis)
Anyway, I arrived at the Hotel Vandivort in downtown Springfield. They had valet parking and I had a chat with the valet. He told me he was running for office: curtis4missouri for you Twitter fans. I looked him up online and found some interesting info. You can check it out yourself.
And here’s some photos. First off, here’s my room. There was a turntable with some albums so I listened to Boots Randolph. Some pretty cool stuff!
Views from the rooftop bar:
They had a choice of “do not disturb” signs. I thought this one was great!
Sculpture on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. It’s called “When Lightning Strikes”
Part of downtown Springfield. As it turns out, the hotel was right around the corner from a really cute town square. But, it had been raining a bit and I didn’t feel comfortable wandering about by myself so I didn’t see it until I was leaving. Oh well!
On my way out of town I decided to stop at the Springfield Museum of Art. I had a short drive yesterday – only about 2 hours – so I felt like I had some time to explore some stuff.
So, one of the exhibits was a Yoko Ono-inspired one, where there was a table full of broken ceramics with white rubber bands and twine. Everyone was encouraged to make their own art. Here is mine:
Here are some photos of art that I liked. While I was in the museum there was a class there. The people were paired up and one person was describing a piece of art to the other one, who was trying to draw it sight unseen. Pretty cool idea!
I LOVE the play of light in this one. And the artist said that was the point of the piece. Capturing the light. Beautiful!
I think a while ago I posted a visit to the Brandywine River Museum. The artist who did the top painting was featured there when I was there!
Finished up at the museum and it was time to head to Bentonville. Had an interesting drive. At one point I was on a fairly new highway and the car GPS was freaking out because it didn’t know where I was. Luckily, I knew where I was and that I was going the right way but it was a little disconcerting!
Anyway, I arrived at Bentonville and I really like it here. It was raining, sometimes hard, so I didn’t do a ton of exploring yesterday, but I’ll put everything in the next post. Staying here 2 nights. Nice to get a break from being in the car!
Talk soon!