Making Our Way Out West

Days 1 and 2 are officially in the books!

We are staying the night just outside of St. Louis, Missouri and will be exploring more of Missouri and Iowa tomorrow.

We had to rearrange our schedule a bit in order to attend my grandma’s funeral on Tuesday. Day 1 was supposed to be 9 hours on the road, but we changed it to only 6 hours due to leaving later in the day.

The mountains of West Virginia are always a beautiful sight and made for a scenic beginning to our trip.

We spent night 1 just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. The boys were still in good spirits after 6 hours on the road.

Day 2 started with a one hour drive to Louisville, Kentucky and a quick stop at Churchill Downs!

After Louisville, it was back on the road again. We drove through Indiana and Illinois before arriving in St. Louis.

Pro tip: Don’t buy gas in Illinois unless you absolutely have to. It is fifty cents per gallon more expensive than Indiana or Missouri. The most we have paid so far is $4.99 per gallon. Yuck!!

Eating out for every meal can get pricey and also not very nutritious, especially fast food. One of our ideas to combat this, is to stop at a grocery store every now and then to add in some fruits and vegetables.

The highlight of the day was most definitely the St. Louis Arch.

I knew it was going to be big.

But when you’re standing next to it, it looks MASSSIVE!!!! It’s just a beautiful landmark and an incredible piece of engineering.

We paid $7 to park and it was a quick 5 to 10 minute walk to the arch.

We actually happened upon a proposal as it was happening in the park. It looked like she said yes, so that’s good!!

There’s a neat museum along with a gift shop, restaurant, movie about the arch and an elevator that takes you to the top.

We finished the day off with a quick swim in the hotel’s pool!! The boys were able to show us some of what they had learned from the YMCA swimming program.

Stats from Day 1 and 2

Total Miles – Around 750
Total States – 6 (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri)
Total Hours on the road – About 11 hours 30 minutes

Closing Thoughts/Daily Observations: We saw many oil rigs today. We haven’t seen any windmills yet. Maybe we will tomorrow. The further west we get, the less contours there are in the land. It’s getting real flat. Haha! We entered the Central time zone in southwest Indiana. Missouri is our first brand new state!