Travelogue Chapter 7: Carthage, Missouri, USA

Dear readers,

We are fast approaching a It's-Monday-it-must-be-Missouri type scenario. All the Gas-stations, motels and Wendy's diners (home of the traditional-style hamburger) are merging into one - giving my unconscious mind the impression that we are driving around in circles all day and not actually going anywhere.

WE have made some fun stops since my last chapter though. We made it to the aforementioned Catsup bottle just outside St. Louis (Missouri) but were disappointed to find that the bottle itself was only about 50 feet tall. Rob spoke for us all when he said, "Well it's kinda big... I suppose." We were expecting a 170 foot bottle but actually, it's raised on a very high platform
which accounts for the rest of its height (See attached picture).

WE also stayed in the University town of Rolla where we drank a lot of beer but didn't talk to anyone except our barmaid and the woman who asked Dave for an ashtray. We're really going to have to step up our womanising if we're going to pull off this epic twenty-something's road-trip rite of passage type thing with
any dignity.

Having woken up hungover getting harrasssed out of the motel (the dingiest yet - holes in the sink, rubber sheets on the beds) first thing in the morning, we went forty miles out of our way because Rob kept singing the words "Meramec Caves" to the tune of "If you'll be my bodyguard" - which somehow made going there seem like a good idea. Fourteen dollars a piece and more stalagmite jokes than you ever need to hear later, we'd seen the cave lit in every conceivable color to make them seem interesting, and had sat listening to Katie Smith sing "God bless America" while they projected an American flag onto some 75 million year-old natural formations.TAcky though it was, and cynical as I am, I have to admit I felt a warmth somewhere in the cockles at the last encore. It was either admiration or indigestion from the Denny's breakfast we'd had in the early hours of that morning on our way back to the pub. AS a true American might say, I guess we'll never know.

Apart from a fifties-style Steak n' Shake, Springfield Missouri blows. It does, however, offer an oppurtunity to sing what one can remember of the 'Springfield Springfield' song from the Simpsons though (an indulgence gladly but poorly fulfilled by myself and Dave).

We're now sixty miles outside Springfield in a place called Carthage on the old Route sixty-six. Clark Gable stayed in the motel we'll probably stay in tonight. We came here because 'Road-Trip America' said it was a town like the one in the 'Back to the Future' films, and Rob sang the theme-tune until we agreed to go. This is the system that seems to work best for us.

We've now clocked-up about 1500 miles.

James.

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