Miracle in Missouri

LA/XC-3 DAYS TWO, THREE, AND FOUR:  COLUMBUS, OHIO; ST. LOUIS AND INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

Day Two mileage:  211.7

Day Three mileage:  475.4

Day Four mileage:  243.9

Total LA/XC-3 mileage: 1,364.8

Road music:  ESPN Radio  (Any time I can listen to Colin Cowherd while I’m on the road, I’m gonna do it.  The guy’s incredibly entertaining and absolutely brilliant.  And he always agrees with me :)); CNN; The Highway.  (To make things simpler from here on in, since those are my three go-to stations, I’m going to refer to them simply as the “Sirius cycle”; Featured artists — For Ohio: The Black Keys, from Akron (music from Brothers and El Camino); Indiana: John Mellencamp, Seymour (American Fool); Illinois: Brett Eldredge, Paris (Bring You Back, including Carol’s favorite song: “Don’t Ya”), who sounds exactly like Counting Crows vocalist Adam Duritz, if you want to check it out; Missouri: Sheryl Crow, Kennett  (C’mon, C’mon; Detours; The Globe Sessions); Saturday and Sunday: football football football football

Weather leaving Mercer PA Friday morning:  65 and brilliant sunshine

Weather arriving Independence Mo Sunday evening:  103 (!!!) and sunny

Three-day state tally: 5 (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri)

Gas money to date:  $258.76

Nicest names signs spotted:  Shenango River (western Pennsylvania, just before the Ohio border); Emma (western Missouri)

Worst name sign spotted:  Cataract Falls (central Indiana)

Cutesiest slogan on a truck:  Porky’s Towing:  “We Meet By Accident”

Attraction we chose not to stop for:  Nostalgiaville USA (Kingdom City, MO)

This place (below) may not look like much — a little hokey, maybe — but it’s where I’m going to be listening to every Jets game for the rest of the season.  I’d

planned to watch yesterday’s season opener against Tampa Bay in a sports bar in St. Louis, but since it’s about 185 million degrees F. in these parts, I couldn’t very well stash Ricky in the car.  Which left listening on satellite radio while I drove as my only option.  But Sirius kept cutting out on me which, as you can well imagine, was driving me absolutely nuts.  So when I located a stretch where the signal was

nice and strong, I pulled off I-70 and just stopped.  And this was it.  As those of you who are FB fans know, my Jets snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.  We’re going 16-and-0, baby! #reviswho

My unplanned stop in Kingdom City, Missouri (yes, Kingdom City is home to Ozarkland, my own personal “sports bar”) was a fruitful one.  Here’s what I accomplished in this fine town:  A Jets W — the first in the Geno era :); filled up the tank; filled up my stomach at Mickey D’s (I’m going native); gave Ricky his 3PM meds; got Ricky to pee and to poop.  Talk about multi-tasking . . .

The Jets win was not the only miracle of the weekend.  On Saturday, I drove 420 miles from Columbus Ohio — pushing my trip total since leaving Westport to well over 1,000 miles — and sprinted into the Anheuser-Busch Brewery as the guide was announcing last call for my much-anticipated Budweiser Brewmaster Tour!  And then, after thoroughly enjoying my final Bud freebie two-plus hours later, I drove the neglible distance to Busch Stadium and got to my seat just as Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright was delivering his first pitch!  As all my family members have heard me say (and say and say and say . . .), it blows my mind that you can travel hundreds of miles for an important event and arrive at the absolute last possible second.  (Robby, remember that Mets game at the Vet in Philly???)

I totally enjoyed the Brewmaster tour, and I really liked the smell of the whole complex.  But a word to the wise:  Do not take this tour without cargo pockets.  Here’s what you’re juggling:  You’ve got the headset and the pocket recorder to better hear the guide; an Anheuser-Busch ballcap you’re supposed to keep on for safety purposes, and goggles you need to wear in most of the indoor work spaces.  Then you’ve got your sunglasses, your reading glasses, and of course the hat you came with.  Wallet.  Cell phone.   Mini-tape recorder for notes.  Lots of stuff.  At the very beginning of the tour I was still gasping for breath after my last-second dash from a distant parking lot, and was so relieved to be

on time, I forgot to listen to the story of the hops and the malt and the barley, etc.  Feeling guilty for not paying attention (my son Matt writes the commercials for Bud Light you’ve been enjoying on NFL games this past weekend, had taken the tour this summer, and told me I cannot pass through St. Louis without taking the brewery tour and getting to a ballgame at Busch Stadium), I tried harder to concentrate on what Mike, our tour guide was saying . . . but my mind kept wandering.  Eventually it came to me that while I love to drink beer, and to collect exotic beer bottles, and to play the occasional game of flip cup, I couldn’t care less about how the stuff came to be in its bottle or can.  Once I got comfortable with this realization, I enjoyed the tour a whole lot more.  Here’s the sum total of what I retained: 700 labels are slapped on bottles per minute; Jake, the biggest Clydesdale (yes, we met him!), is 7 ft at the shoulders and weighs 2300 lbs; and long ago an Anheuser married a Busch, and that’s why the company is named Anheuser-Busch.

Busch Stadium was all Matt promised, and more.  The crowd in Cardinals red; the huge scoreboard topped by an old-school clock surrounded by two redbirds and underlined by “Budweiser” in script; the bright stadium lights, and right behind the stadium, magically, the Gateway Arch.   And the electricity of a tight pennant race with the Pirates — who the Cards just happened to be playing.  The home team won 5-0 behind a Wainwright gem.  Not that I cared.  When you’re a Mets fan, you stop following baseball by mid-June.  Still, a magical ballpark.  As advertised.  (Ricky, btw, spent the day with Lizz, his very capable local dogsitter via Sittercity, the outfit I’ve used on some of our travels.)

Jumping back to Friday and a great visit to the Ohio State University — another major college campus I can now put a check mark next to.  Spent time with Mack Weber, a close family friend and an OSU senior who gave Ricky and me a very professional VIP campus tour.  The sheer scale of the place knocked my socks off; nothing like the Trinitys or

even USCs or Penns in our family experience.  I was also pretty blown away by some of the palatial fraternity and sorority houses.  I think the truly grand one was Alpha Phi?  (Is that letter that looks like an “O” with a vertical line through it “Phi”?  Don’t know my Greek alphabet the way I did in my fraternity days.  Then again, nobody whacks me with a paddle today if I don’t know my beta from my theta.)  Anyway, there was a real buzz on a Friday night before a game day.  Great time.

RANDOM ROAD NOTES:

•  God, what a relief to hear NFL football on the radio again!

•  I-70 West to Effingham.  Effingham.  Doesn’t it sound like they’re trying to avoid saying a bad word?

•  Don’t know why it took me three cross-country drives and maybe 9,456 reaches up to the overhead slot above the dashboard to realize I should just wear my reading glasses on a string around my neck.  Duh.

•  At one point in central Ohio I got lost in my thoughts, kept my foot on the gas, and saw those blue flashing lights coming up behind me.  Then he pulled someone else over.  Pret-ty good feeling.

•  Downtown Columbus actually has a skyline.  Who knew?

•  Passed through Pocahontas, Illinois, of Gretchen Wilson (“Pocahontas Proud”) fame.

•  Why do my Taylor Swift selections on my 100 Favorite Lists get such a violent negative reaction?  Like from Linda G., and Mike P., and my wife, who doesn’t even listen to T. Swift’s lyrics but swears she sings every single song about being 15?  Wow.  I think she’s a brilliant songwriter who makes amazingly tuneful records with incredible hooks.  And I think she’s kind of pretty.  Though from what I gather, she’s way, way too tall for me.

Spent last night (still there now as I write) in a very, very hot (100+ degrees) Independence MO, birthplace of Harry Truman — and inspiration for a great song by the Band Perry (“Independence”).  Still another Presidential home town coming up on the itinerary:  Hope, Arkansas, on the way home.

Hey, everyone, thank you, thank you, thank you for the comments!!!  Not answering them individually — have many miles still to go — but please know they’re hugely appreciated.

Next stop:  Kansas . . .

I PLAN TO POST AS CLOSE TO DAILY AS POSSIBLE WHILE RICKY AND I ARE ON THE ROAD.  BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY:  MAN PLANS, GOD LAUGHS.   OH, AND BTW, YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER