road trip – Page 3 – Frugal Living

The Road Less Traveled

July 14, 2014 by Andrew Leave a Comment

This past weekend my in-laws were visiting nearby and graciously invited us to tag along on a day trip to Springfield. Instead of zipping there on the interstate, we opted to take a well known, but lightly treaded path known as Route 66.

Even though we only drove along a short section of the historic roadway, we did pass by several iconic, larger than life, roadside attractions. This Paul Bunyan statue is holding a giant hot dog. We learned from reading the sign that a single Paul Bunyan mould was used to create a number of statues. The original mould was designed for him to hold an ax, but as other businesses adopted the giant mascot, they retrofitted him with whatever merchandise they were peddling (or whatever they thought would get motorists attention).

Nearby, partially obscured by trees was an old mural advertisement for a business.

A short while down the road we came upon another larger than life man.

While Frugal Boy slept for most of the car ride, these scattered diversions would be great for kids. Not only does it give them a chance to get out and run around for a bit, it also provides points of reference for future traveling. Now when I drive past these towns on the interstate, I will be able to remember something about them and the whole trip will go by a little bit faster.

Well Mr. Giant Lincoln, how about we visit your last residence. Okay, maybe a recreation of your last house, because that was the first place that we visited upon reaching Springfield.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, IL tells the story of our 16th president from his humble beginnings in Kentucky and Indiana to his rather tumultuous political career in Illinois and Washington D.C. The museum is definitely worth a visit and seeing as photography was disallowed in most areas, you will have to see it for yourselves. Plan your visit during non peak days as the layout and flow of the museum can get a bit constipated.

Outside of the museum, we paused for a quick photo op.

There are a number of attractions within walking distance. The first one we visited was the “old” state Capitol.

This was actually the 5th state capitol and the first one located in Springfield. The General Assembly was a tidy room.

The 6th and latest state capitol, built after the Civil War, is a much larger building.

There’s a happy couple

and here are some ‘newly’weds

While we were trying to figure out where the handicap accessible entrance was (for Frugal Boy’s stroller) we somehow ended up at the Illinois State Museum.

This free museum spans 3 levels. The basement houses a large hands on activity area for kids. Frugal Boy found a comfy nest and waited for momma to feed him birdy style.

The main floor exhibit is centered around the natural history of the state.

The second floor contains a couple of art exhibits, a homage to the Native Americans, and a small exhibit about the evolving Illinois home.

By this time, Frugal Boy was doing his best zombie impersonation and we decided it was time to move on.

After scouting out the perimeter of the capitol building, we surrendered ourselves to the fact of dragging a stroller up some stairs and gained entrance. We had made it just in time for the last tour of the day and because it was a weekend you had to be a part of the tour to see anything past the first floor.

I have a soft spot for a big pretty rotunda.

By the 1980s, due to a combination of gas lights and smoking, the entire rotunda was black. It took a massive cleaning effort to clean up the filth.

Here is the current House of Representatives.

Near the end of the tour we saw the largest mural in the capitol depicting a peace treaty being signed with the native americans. In the 1800s the state spent $2000 on this mural. Today it is considered priceless (inflated cost of initial work is about $34.5k).

We had a great time and it was fun seeing a part of our state’s Capitol. A big thanks to my in-laws for coming down and letting us tag along on a little adventure!

4th of July Road Trip – Part 3

July 9, 2014 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Read part 1 here

Read part 2 here

Waving goodbye to the granite circus elephants we motored down the highway to Pilot Knob. We made a slight detour to check out Fort Davidson, and decided that it wasn’t worth waking up Frugal Boy and getting out of the car for.

Continuing down the highway we eventually saw our turnoff for our next destination. The road went up and up, climbing steeply and winding back and forth. As we neared the top of the mountain, the road transitioned from asphalt to gravel. We were nearly at the tallest point in all of Missouri!

There was a small overlook parking lot so we stopped to take in the sights.

This whole area would be gorgeous in its autumn colors. We got back in the car and finished up the drive to the summit parking lot. Taum Sauk mountain has a plateau top, meaning that there is no discernible summit. There is a short 1/4 mile paved wheelchair accessible trail that leads from the parking lot to the surveyed “summit”. After our ‘arduous’ trek, we reached the top of the mountain and stood a whopping 1772 feet above sea level. I guess you could say we had more potential than anyone else in Missouri at that time. (hehehehe, it’s a physics joke)

A 3 mile roundtrip rugged trail would let us see Mina Falls, the tallest waterfall in Missouri, and since we felt cheated of climbing a mountain we decided to do that as well. A kindly gentleman saw us starting out on the trail as he was finishing it and warned us that it was difficult. I think he was worried because we had Frugal Boy with us, but we were well prepared for a hike with proper footwear, snacks, and water.

The trail was quite rocky and did descend down the side of the mountain. We saw several groups of teenagers/college kiddies hiking by in flip flops and no water bottles. Silly kids.

The sound of running water tipped us off before we saw anything. The trail dumps you out at the top of the waterfall and it is a bit of a climb to get to the bottom and take a proper picture of it (something that we didn’t do). Here you can see me on the other side of the stream looking down at the falls.

There were a number of smaller waterfalls upstream and some slow moving areas that were populated with fish. This one made a good place to eat a snack and rest.

The hike back up was uneventful and we made better time than going down. I think climbing up is easier (especially on the joints). Frugal Boy was exhausted from all of the hiking and was passed out for much of the journey.

On the drive in we noticed a turnoff for a fire tower so we decided to stop by on our way out.

Again, the ideal time to visit would most likely be during Autumn.

All tuckered out from hiking we drove down the mountain and continued on our adventure to the final destination for the day.

Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park is perhaps one of the most popular swimmin’ holes in Missouri. Shut-In is a term that describes a narrowing of the river, usually because hard rock that has withstood the eroding force of water. The Black River that runs through the park has a number of these shut-ins that help form a natural water park of sorts. In 2006 the dam upstream of the park burst and everything in the park with the exception of one pit toilet was washed away in a catastrophic flood. Today, the park has been rebuilt and the swimming area has been cleaned of all debris.

The parking lot for swimming is much smaller than the demand for the park, so in order to park you must wait at a gate until someone else leaves. I do not know if the limited parking is for flood safety or just poor design. Either way, Frugal Boy passed the time performing some sort of colonoscopy on his toy monkey.

After a brief wait at the gate and another one for one of the three changing rooms (I’m starting to think it was all just poor design) we were on the boardwalk overlooking the Black River.

Here are the shut-ins.

It was fascinating to watch all of the different ways you could play in them. Some people knew where the deep bowls where and jumped from the top of the rocks into them, other people slid down the smooth waterways like giant slides, while others still lounged in ‘jacuzzi’ style pools that water jetted through. We ended up taking a tamer approach and waded in the calm waters upstream.

All three of us slept very well that night. The next day, Sunday, we left Farmington and drove home. On the way we stopped to visit with an old friend that I had not seen in many years. A great part of road trips is making little detours to say hi to somebody. It is never too late to reconnect with someone!

We did run into some snarled up traffic near the very end of our trip. A motorcyclist had crashed his bike and both him and his passenger died. Besides that sadness it was a great trip and we made tons of wonderful memories. Now we have to start thinking about where we want to go for our next trip!

4th of July Road Trip – Part 2

July 8, 2014 by Andrew 2 Comments

Read part 1 here

Saturday was our big adventure day. After getting ready in the morning and eating breakfast we made a quick stop at Wally World to pick up a couple of deli sandwiches. Supermarket delis offer a fairly cheap source of pre made and relatively fresh food. For $5 we had a huge sub sandwich that we packed away in a cooler bag along with some free hotel ice.

Now that we were ready, we departed Farmington and made our way West South West to the heart of Arcadia Valley. Arcadia Valley is situated in the St. Francois Mountains of the Ozark Plateau. The area has/is heavily mined and our first stop was an old abandoned granite quarry.

Elephant Rocks State Park is best known for its granite tors. A tor is a rock outcropping that has been left behind by weathering. The park is named for the series of tors that resemble circus elephants balancing on each others backs.

Before you even get to the main event there is much fun to be had just steps away from the parking lot.

The trees are covered with the same lichen and moss as the boulders

and in some places the trees grow around the tough granite.

This looked like a good place to take a family photo (hindsight is 20/20 eh)

As we walked along the interpretive trail, it wasn’t difficult to find signs of quarrying.

A short distance away, there stood the remnants of a 100+ year old engine house that helped carry the stone away.

Finally, we stumbled upon the site of the main quarry. According to a sign, the cliff walls are 30 feet and the water depth is another 40 feet.

One of my favorite things to do on this trip was to offer to take group photos of other people. It always kind of pains me to see folks trying to take group selfies. In return, it is almost impossible for them to say no when you ask them to take a picture of you!

Now it was time to get to the main attraction! The rocks created a twisty turny labyrinth that was an absolute playground to explore, get lost in, and rediscover one another.

I couldn’t think of a better place to take kids to go play (okay there was another awesome place later in the trip).

Thanks for the butt shot Shae!

The “elephants” were spectacular as well.

Another moment of scratch your back, scratch mine.

We felt like we had explored every nook and cranny and our stomachs were starting to gurgle so we trekked back to the parking lot to have our picnic lunch.

and a parent nap (they are shorter than cat naps)

Then it was time to drive to our next adventure!

4th of July Road Trip – Part 1

July 7, 2014 by Andrew 2 Comments

This year, Independence Day fell on a Friday and that meant an extended weekend! We decided that we wanted to explore and take in some new sights so planned a short road trip to our neighbor state Missouri.

Frugal Boy was 100% ready for adventures and mischief!

After a couple of hours on the interstate, it was time to get out and stretch our legs and change a diaper.

We had packed a bunch of snacks for the trip. Our plan to save money was to just buy sandwiches along the way and supplement those sandwiches with all of our snacks. With lunchtime rolling around and our first destination within a couple of miles we stopped at a Jack in the Box drive through to pick up our hot lunch. As I was waiting in the drive through lane I caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror of a woman running past the back of the car. A couple of seconds later, I saw a man run by. What the?! I turned around to see a whole group of joggers making laps around the strip mall parking lot. Maybe it was a 5K race, or perhaps they were just training for the zombie apocalypse.

Waving goodbye to the joggers we headed down the road a little ways to our first stop, Cahokia Mounds Historic Site.

It didn’t take us long to find a nice place to setup our picnic lunch.

The visitors center was quite large and perhaps best of all, it was free admittance!

Cahokia Mounds was a native American settlement between 900 A.D. and 1200 A.D. At its peak, it had a population of approximately 20,000. That made it larger than the city of London during the same time period. Cahokia was the trading powerhouse of the Americas with only Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City) rivaling it.

The Indians built large earthen mounds to serve as either burial places for distinguished individuals or to elevate leaders living spaces above the commoners.

The VC featured a life sized recreation of what a part of the city may have looked like. Game, such as deer, provided needed protein in addition to the agricultural crop that they harvested.

The largest mound, Monks Mound, was the home of the leader of the city. The head chieftain was supposedly the brother of the Sun god and that of course made him a god himself. In the 1800s Christian monks farmed the terraces of the mound (hence the name). The mound rises a staggering 100 feet above its surroundings, has a footprint of 14 acres, and is the largest prehistoric earthworks in the Americas.

Climbing up the stairs really does feel like you are going into the sky to meet the sun gods brother.

From the top, you can easily see downtown Saint Louis. Frugal Boy’s hat was a bit big on him.

The settlement covered six square miles and included dozens of mounds, wood henge (a calendar of sorts kind of like stone henge), a perimeter stockade, and borrow pits (wetlands). We spent over two hours exploring the grounds and barely even scratched the surface. You could easily spend an entire day at Cahokia Mounds.

Alas, we were still in Illinois and needed to get to our destination, Farmington, Missouri. The rest of our day was fairly uneventful and it wasn’t too long before we were checked into a hotel for the night.

I couldn’t help but snicker when I saw a Cash Advance joint next door to an Edward Jones Investment office in Farmington. Talk about mutually exclusive!

Stay tuned for Day 2 of our adventure.