We're going to start this one just south of Bloomington IL on old 51. It's actually a decent stretch of road. The highlight on that strectch is going through Vandalia, Illinois former capital. We turned west on 15 thru Nashville (like I say, have to go through "famous" cities), then south on 4 thru Sparta, and on to 150 into MO. Now, right at the border of IL & MO, on the IL side, is the city of Chester. Chester IL is the birthplace of one of the artists who drew Popeye. It's also home to a sanitarium. We crossed into MO, jumped on 61 and followed it to Cape Girardeau MO. It's a real homey kind of city. Our hotel was right across from a mall and strip mall, and being a HI Express (non full service), it shares like 3-4 restaurants with 2 or 3 other non full serve hotels. Real nice area just of the Interstate.
Next day, we headed south on I55 to 60. West there to 25, and south into Arkansas. We stopped in Jonesboro for food, at Cracker Barrel. Jonesboro, home of the ASU Razorbacks. LOL Did not know that til we went through. ASU has a beautiful campus from what we saw. From there it was south on 49 til we hit I40 and took that to Little Rock. Little Rock is a pretty city. I will say now, go there and walk through the Clinton Library. It's awesome. Give yourself a minimum of 2 hours to go through it. Uncle and I flew through it in an hour and a half. It's like $7 a person under 65 and $5 or $6 over 65. Not real expensive to wander through. Words cannot do justice, you need to go there. And stay at the Holiday Inn Presidential. It's a half mile or so from the library and has shuttle service. You can even eat and drink at Camp David. The lobby has a beautiful setup of a room from the White House as well as photos of several current and former presidents.
Now our original plan was to go through Branson, so this next day was supposed to put us there. I however, mostly joking, say to the uncle "What say we hit Cincinnati and see my brothers?" He goes "Call them up, see if theyre gonna be around." We made it happen. They were both going to be available 3 nights later. So we decided one more day west then do Cincinnati over two days. So we got on I30 S to Benton and jumped on 5 south from there. We followed that to 7 north into the Ouachita (pronounced washitah) National Forest. Nicolet Forest is a pretty forest, but ugly compared to Ouachita. We followed that til we hit 10 and went west on that. Funniest part of that bit was going through Havana. Several cigar jokes got made. We ended in Fort Smith for the day. Now, we could have gone straight thruon I40 and been there in 2 and a half hours, but that's no fun and we would have been there by like 11 AM. So we took the five hour route. Fort Smith was cool. Pretty Holiday Inn. The bar was an interesting time. It was, for the most part, me, the uncle and the bartender. There were people coming and going though; the hotel had pro wrestling in one of their meeting rooms. LOL Can't go anywhere without stopping at a hotel with some kind of function. The bartender ruled though. We sit down and she's like "Y'all mind if we watch Rocky? They've got a marathon going today." Cool. Hah hah. gotta dig any woman into Rocky and Rambo.
So, time to start heading to Ohio. The next two days, we spent more time on interstates than I think we did in all the other trips combined, with the exception of the Texas trip. We saw I40 through Arkansas, getting off before Memphis, and jumped on 55 back to Cape Girardeau and spent the night. From there, we came back into IL the way we left, on 150 and wound our way to I70. We spent like 7 hours on the road that day. Talk about braindead. 13 or so hours in 2 days on interstates. Ugh. Cincinnati is a city worth a weeks vacation in. A ton to do, and a billion places to stay at. The hotel we were at, and we planned it this way, was two doors down from my youngest brothers apartment. We ate at the Montgomery Inn, a place known for its ribs. You can also buy their BBQ sauce at any Kroger grocery store. Afterward, back to the hotel and hang out at the bar with the youngest bro. First hotel I've stayed at where you could legally gamble, at least to an extent. They had Keno going on. Buy some tickets and watch the screen over the bar. Didn't win anything though. Oh well.
Time to head home the next day. And off the Interstates as soon as we could do it. We did I74 it to Indianapolis, followed the roundabout to I65 and got off north of the city. We jumped on 28 and followed it into Illinois, going through Attica. Yes folks, Attica. LOL I've been there. Granted it isn't the famous one in NY, but dammit I've been there. About two hours later we arrived back home in wonderful central Illinois. Ended up being a rather interesting trip all around. Would gladly do the route again, with some modifications of course.
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