Goin’ South – Part 2 – St. Louis Bound

After leaving Hays, we headed to St. Louis, Missouri. That was our next stopping point. We were popping in to visit our friend Nancy and her new husband Denny. The distance between Hays and St. Louis is 516 miles, and it was a 7 1/2 hour drive. We stopped a little in between to take in some of the sites, but for the most part, we were in the car driving until we got to Nancy and Denny’s house.

One of our stops was in Abilene, KS. We stopped at the Eisenhower house and Presidential Library. President Eisenhower was America’s 34th President and was from Abilene. We didn’t have time to go into the library itself, but the grounds were beautiful.

We did have time enough to watch a short film on President Eisenhower and took a few pictures inside too. We both practiced giving our Presidential speeches at the podium.

We explored the gardens and some of the nearby sights as well.

Abilene is a very clean, cute place, right in the heart of the country. It is typical small town America. It was a refreshing place to visit. But, we couldn’t stay long. We had to get back on the road again.

This is pretty much what we saw for the rest of our journey until we passed through Kansas City, both in Kansas and in Missouri.

We drove straight through Kansas City.

The Missouri River separates Kansas and Missouri and the bridge was the state line. Kansas City is split between two states, being partially in Kansas and partially in Missouri.  It sits on the border of Missouri and Kansas. Kansas City is primarily located in Missouri (specifically Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass counties). It is the largest city in Missouri. However, the metropolitan area spans the Missouri-Kansas border, with a separate Kansas City, Kansas, located immediately to the west, separate, adjacent cities named Kansas City—one in Kansas and one in Missouri. They sit right next to each other along the state line (divided by State Line Road) and make up a single, unified metropolitan area.

And we just kept driving on until we reached St. Louis. Nancy said she and Denny couldn’t go to the Gateway Arch, and that was something we wanted to see, so we went to take pictures before we went to their house.

Nancy said their house wasn’t too far from the Arch, so after seeing it, we went straight there. We told Nancy and Denny we would take them out to dinner, they just had to choose the restaurant. So after a short visit, we had worked up an appetite and we all went to dinner and had a great time catching up over dinner. After dinner, Nancy gave us a tour of the area and the local hot spots. My favorite was the Budweiser farm for their beautiful Clydesdale horses. Aren’t they gorgeous?

After a delicious dinner and a short tour of the area, we all went back to spend the rest of the evening with Nancy and Denny. We spent the night with them before heading out again in the morning.

I will stop here for now, and post another post on the restaurant. This is a good place for an intermission. 🙂

Stay tuned. There is plenty more to come. 🙂