Route 66 Chicago to Los Angeles: Day 3

A long day….300 miles; across the State of Missouri.

For those of you who remember your grammar school education, you will remember that Missouri was the focus of the Missouri Compromise prior to the Civil War. It was brought into Union as a slave state, while Maine was created as a state and brought into the Union as a Free State…..so the overall balance between Slave/Free States was not disrupted. In addition, there was an agreement in Congress that the remainder of the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase (west of Missouri) would remain free of slave holdings.

It was not America’s finest moment, but it was crude attempt to avoid a Civil War….at least for a few more years. When that Civil War came, it meant that the war came to Missouri; Confederate troops coming north to delay Union troops (under the command of Grant and Sherman) whose ultimate goal was to capture New Orleans and control of the traffic on the Mississippi.

Some of those early battles are depicted in beautiful murals on the sides of buildings in Cuba, Missouri. We viewed these murals today and I have tried to post pictures of these murals.

One of the strangest stops on our journey came when we stopped stopped at Uranus, Missouri. A true “Roadside Attraction” with its own freak show called the Museum of the Strange. Like many of the Roadside Attraction, Uranus makes its own candy, fudge and assorted sweets. While I did not go to the Museum of the Strange, I did purchase a square of freshly made fudge……chocolate and peanut butter. The small piece weighted 1/4 of a pound and contained enough sugar to cause diabetes in the strongest of men.

With a lunch stop in Springfield, Missouri we reached our destination of Joplin about 5:30pm. I’ve tried to post lots of pictures, which are better representation of our trip than anything I can out in words. Remember you can follow our travels at shamrockracing.net

An Observation: The Midwest is boring and while the people here are welcoming, polite, hardworking and attractive, there is a sameness everywhere. While driving on the Interstate you see that same corporate hotels/motels, the same fast food outlets and a vast array of Walmart’s, Walgreens and McDonald, etc. All of these stores, hotels and commercial ventures look alike. Their building are cookie cutter replicas of everything else in their corporate portfolios. These businesses are run by “Marketing Men,” who care little about the nature of the product or service being sold.

Let me leave it by saying that it would be a very long adjustment period, if Zi were to move here.