Meet us in St. Louis...and Sidney, NE too

We have had a great couple of days. We took our time driving from Seymour and stopped several times to let the dogs play and us stretch our legs. It's always nice to get out of the car for a little while, even if it's just to get gas. We have taken to stopping long enough for lunch to sit down to eat. That's been a nice break. We didn't really know where we would end up staying on Monday. We wanted to try to make it as close to St. Louis as we could, but didn't know if we'd stop to camp before or after we passed though. We made it easily to the city before rush hour.

We all wanted a break, and Beth really wanted to see the Gateway Arch, so we decided to all get out and enjoy a nice walk down to the Arch and sat on the lawn enjoying the view of the Mississippi River and the people. What a fun way to spend an afternoon. We had all kinds of people stopping us to see our dogs. It was quite funny. It was really amazing to see a structure like that. Did you know that the Arch was designed in 1943 and built in 1962-ish and that in order to set the final piece together (the center) they had to wait for the perfect time, temp and windspeed? That's just amazing! They did all of that before computers were everywhere and before you could just plug some numbers into a formula. They had to do it all by themselves. I think that totally blows away some of the more elaborate structures being built today. I love the simplicity of it. Things so simple are oftentimes the hardest to make. Isn't that so often like life?
After about an hour we decided to trek off to find a place to camp. That was an adventure all by itself! Boy, let me tell ya. It took us a while to find somewhere, but we finally did about an hour outside the city in O'Fallon. We stayed at the Cherokee Campground and it was interesting to say the least. We pitched our tent and set up camp to enjoy our evening. We were surrounded by mostly RV's with a few tents. Our neighbors had just been evicted from the campground (most of the people live there apparently) It seems cops had ambushed the place. Turns our we camped next to a meth lab. Isn't that special?

Tuesday we woke up around 6 am. It was a long, cold night in Missouri and we were up with the birds. Oh well, by 7 we were off. We were trying to make it to Lincoln, but when we hit it at 2 p.m. we decided to go further. We ended up going to our Wednesday goal (Sidney, NE) to spend two nights in a hotel. Camping made us achy and gave Beth a sore throat - yeah, we're wimps. We didn't have good sleeping bags though, so we'll use that as our excuse. We'll camp on the ferry and likely at Zach's parent's house too.

We found a hotel that allows pets right next door to Cabela's. They normally make those with pets stay in smoking rooms, but she said we could stay in a non-smoking. Not only that, but when we asked for the AAA rate and that was only a few dollars less than the regular rate, we asked if they had a better rate for military. Well, she gave us a $120 king room with a jacuzzi for $81! How cool is that? God was completely looking out for us. He has truly blessed us while we have been on this trip and just with this whole move.

Cabela's was fun today! It's huge - I'm talkin' 85,000 sq. ft huge! They have a big aquarium with fish native to the area in it. I also tried on my first pair of waders. It was quite a site, no pic, but I'm sure there will be one from Sierra Trading Post in Cody since I didn't find any that fit me. I'm just too short. I blame that on mom. lol. Zach decided to take a nap while we were there. He got tired of shopping with me. He wanted me to try out some fishing poles and I had NO clue what to do. When they put the reel on the rod and had me practice casting I had to ask what casting was. After they all stopped laughing they decided to not bother with casting and move on to see if I could comfortably reel in with that combo. I seriously thought that when you reeled in that you wound towards yourself clockwise. Gosh, that's the way I've always pretended to fish. Yes, I have pretended to fish, haven't you? They laughed about this too, but the sales guy made me feel better b/c he said I wouldn't know if I hadn't fished before, so there. *sticking out tongue

Ok, enough of that. Snowflake, Morgan, Zach and I are outside the hotel enjoying the fresh air. The girls don't know what to think about the wind and tumbleweed. It's too funny. Just wait til they see Alaska!

Tomorrow we're off for our next stop. We'll tell you all about it soon!