After leaving Chattanooga, we spent most of the day driving through beautiful Tennessee and Kentucky mountains but actually drove through no less than five different states to finally arrive in St. Louis, Missouri. We didn’t stop to see the arch again, because once you’ve seen it three times you’ve seen it enough. We did take a picture for anyone who hasn’t been there.
After driving all day, we wanted to get out and walk some to get our legs moving again. We found the Mississippi Greenway Park with walking trails that run along the Mississippi River. The area along the river seems virtually untouched and reminded me of a scene from one of those Western movies with Indians paddling along the river in canoes made from hollowed out logs and settlers watching from the banks.
Of course, Jim was drawn to the barges as usual.
Today was a long drive from St. Louis through endless corn and soybean fields. There are 90 million acres of corn fields in the U.S., and we saw at least 45 million acres today.
To be honest, we went more than a little out of our way to stop in Walcott, Iowa at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop. In 1964 this truck stop opened, and it has never been closed since. Every day and night for 59 years and it is the largest in the world. It has 75 developed acres out of a total of 225 acres that offers everything a trucker could want or hope for. The retail building is nearly 100,000 square feet and they currently serve an average of 5,000 customers a day. They have a movie theater, dentist, and even a chiropractor available for drivers. Unbelievable!
We decided to eat a late lunch/early dinner there because one of the retail options is the Iowa 80 Kitchen Restaurant. This is in addition to a food court with lots of fast-food options, and all the convenience store retail options as well. I could not believe my eyes when they brought out my meatloaf dinner and the meatloaf was a 4x4x4 cube that I could have eaten on for a week. Jim’s pot roast had to be a pound of meat with carrots and potatoes weighing in for another pound. Not wonder some truckers look overweight.
After we ate, we walked over to the truck museum that is also part of the Truckstop and free. I have never seen such a complete collection of trucks starting in the early 1900’s up to some of the most recent unusual trucks of modern times. There was one that was used as a mail truck in 1930 and they made it into a snowmobile.
This was a very worthwhile stop even though it made the trip longer. We are stopping in Ames, Iowa for the night and there is already a bit of a chill in the air.
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The river walk and truck stop looked awesome! 😎👍