Belmont to Pacific, Missouri

After traveling almost 500 miles today, we have stopped for the night in Pacific, Missouri ~ about a half hour beyond St. Louis. We worshipped at church, as usual, this morning: Mr. Jones singing in the choir during second and third service, and me in with the 3's ... but we pulled out of the parking lot at church at 11:49 to start the first day of our 1,643 mile drive to El Paso. The skies were a beautiful clear blue, contrasting with the otherwise colorless scenery of stark browns, greys, and the bare limbs of trees awaiting spring. I didn't see a speck of green until just inside the Michigan/Indiana border, and that was only one small field. The smokestacks of Gary were just as ugly as ever, and even uglier were the barrier walls all along I-94 approaching Chicago ... cement, concrete, asphalt, massive bridges and truck after truck after truck; although traffic at least moved right along! We were welcomed to Illinois at 2:49, quickly passing the quarry by South Holland and the train yard beyond, with too many trains to count (although Mr. Jones would have if he'd had the opportunity).
Finally, we were on the I-55 crossing the Des Plaines River near Joliet and then ... farm country! This is really one of my favorite parts of our drive. I never get tired of seeing the old farm houses and beautiful barns. The fields were strewn with the remains of last year's harvest, not yet plowed or seeded ...

We began seeing signs along the road: "Keep Pontiac Prison Open!" When we stopped at a rest area in Limestone, Mr. Jones was handed a State Map of Illinois and was compelled to take it after being told this map was a "souvenir" and "going fast!" The man who handed him the map pointed out that the map has Rod R. Blagojevich listed as the governor of Illinois, who by the way, was AGAINST keeping Pontiac Prison open ... the gentleman said he was glad the prison stayed open and that perhaps the governor would soon be taking up residence there! Ouch!

Yesterday, we had gone to the library and checked out The Secret Servant (a novel on CD) by Daniel Silva. It was nearly 6:00 in the evening when we decided to hear the first few chapters ~ and ended up listening to the first of 11 disks! It's kind of an Israeli spy novel and the reader did an excellent job using various voices for the many interesting characters. I'm looking forward to continuing the story tomorrow. We easily passed a very enjoyable hour this way between 6:00 and 7:00 and soon after we could clearly see the city of St. Louis from a distance of 15 miles. The arch came into view at somewhere around 10 miles away ... lots of trees were blocking our view, however.

Shooting directly into the sun doesn't always work! Our goal was to make it past St. Louis on this first day, so I'm thankful we've done just that. We arrived here in Pacific after the sun set ~ it's a little tiny town, centered around Old Route 66 where the Meramec River and the St. Peter sandstone bluffs meet. The brochure I'm looking at says it has some interesting railroad history, so I wonder if we are going to scout out some tracks in the morning ... we tentatively plan to drive about 12 hours tomorrow, so I'm going to get some rest! Good-night from Pacific!