Days 4-5: Illinois, Iowa, Prairie Park, All The Corn (We Broke Into a Zoo)

(Still backdated.)

Night 4: In a Caboose, On a Prairie Farm, the Middle of Nowhere, Illinois

We crossed the Mississippi back into Illinois and drove away from St Louis, going north into the middle of nowhere. (The town is Hanna City, but trust me, it's in the middle of nowhere. Google maps calls it a village, which would cause me to type the laugh-cry emoji if such a thing existed on this non-mobile PC qwerty keyboard.)

So in Hanna City, well not in but near Hanna City, there is this prairie park that Natalie told me about, and while I had never even heard of a prairie park and didn't fully understand what it was, apparently they had cabooses you could rent for the night, so I rented one and we drove there. Because my kids like cabooses and I like adventures.

So it turns out it's something of a cross between a state park, and a campground, and a zoo, but really it's all three of those things put together. It was totally fun!

We checked in to our caboose, which was like renting a cabin or something for the night. Very basic, not fancy, but my lower bunk was super comfy and the kids were effing delighted.

And then we went and explored the park. There were a few playgrounds, one of which had a giant slide down the side of a hill.

The map showed us there was some sort of zoo, which we assumed, once they locked us in the park all night, we could go walk through any time. But it turns out it was closed for the night, but, I mean, look at that gate. It's totally jumpable.

So we broke into a zoo.

Why, what do you do on your family vacations?

(Stop clutching your pearls, we only wanted to walk through it and see the animals, we weren't going to hurt anything or get into any trouble. Our kids were fairly scandalized though. Convinced the police were going to come take us to jail. SUCH RULE FOLLOWERS. They totally get that from Mark.)

When we got to the back end of the loop around the zoo, we saw some other people - someone who must take care of the animals at the petting zoo. We just blatantly played on a swingset nearby and they didn't say boo to us. What's that thing about how if you act like you're supposed to be somewhere, you will get away with it? Yeah, that.

Basically though, halfway through our walk, we got a little creeped out. A zoo, after hours, with no handlers around, even though the animals were all in cages (although Mark was not reassured by some of the "enclosures" which were wide open on top for, like, mountain lions), totally spooked us. We felt like we were in Jurassic Park by the end. That eerie feeling that some sh!t is about to go down.

(We are all rule followers at heart, is what I'm saying, even me.)

We're scared in a zoo after hours and I don't
think our tour guide can even read that map

Anyway it was a delightful night in a caboose, and if you ever find yourself in the middle of nowhere, Illinois, you should absolutely go spend the night there. It's a beautiful part of the country.


Day 5: Iowa

The next morning we kept driving north and then crossed the Mississippi (again) into Iowa.

I should stop here and say two things:

1- is your midwestern geography as bad as mine? When I first learned where all these states were, in relation to each other, I was like wuuuuut. Is this how other people feel about the deep south? Or New England? Anyway.

2- There is so much corn in America, y'all. At this point we had been driving through corn for two straight days, and there was no end in sight, and when we got on back roads in Iowa it was just corn and corn and corn and corn. I thought I was ready for it after my trip last summer, but what you can see and wrap your brain around from major interstates is NOTHING compared to the miles and miles and miles of nothing but corn that exists when you get deep into those counties. How are we using so much corn? How?? HOW. I mean yes, I know it's in everything, but. But. It's so much. Nothing I write here can describe it. It's hard for me to remember anymore how many other things we grow in America, because you can drive for two days (and even more!) and see nothing. but. corn.

Okay so after miles and miles of corn, we arrived at the Field of Dreams movie site for a picnic lunch! This was a totally delightful stop worth going a bit off the beaten path for. It was pretty, and easy, and oh man what a beautiful day.

Mark and the kids threw the ball around (yes we remembered gloves, of course we remembered gloves, my secret superpower is maybe packing lists), and ran the bases, and crept in and out of the cornfield like creepy creepsters pretending to be creepy historical baseball ghosts, Anneliese had a minor breakdown (the first Incident of the trip!) but lunch turned it around.

Speaking of packing, our intelligently-packed cooler was such a great move for this trip. It made meals cheap and easy and ready whenever we were. I am very pleased with myself for that level of planning, I have to say.

(Self-five!) (Are you picturing Tina Fey right now? Good job.)

I should do a You Know What You Should Do type blog post about my pro tips for road trip packing, but. Another day.

Days 3-4: St Louis (The Arch Is Made of Metal!)

(Hi, still backdated, ride along anyway.)

Day 3: Driving to St Louis

We got a fairly early start and had a gorgeous drive through the horse country of Kentucky. Nathan read us lots of fun! facts! from his NatGeo Kids Atlas book, which I definitely only regretted buying him once or twice) (probably) (ish).

We crossed the Mississippi for the first time and made it to the city in time for the Cardinals game, which Mark and Nathan and Charlotte had tickets to. Apparently it was hot as the dickens in there (people say that in St Louis, right?) but the view was super cool and it was fun to see a game in a new stadium.

Meanwhile, Anneliese and I drove to the other side of town to St Louis University, to visit their Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. If you're in St Louis, you should go there. It's free, and weird, and cool.

And then we went to a Starbucks in the lobby of a fancy hotel with an arch view, because we know how to do vacation right.

We picked up our Cardinals fans, complete with free promo jerseys, and checked into our hotel where we promptly took a group nap. Because again: we know how to do vacation right.

We went out for ribs for dinner, although we are dubious southerners when it comes to other people's barbecue (excuse me, "barbecue"), our dinner was totally delicious. Not barbecue, exactly. But grilled and meaty and smoky and great. St Louis, you get an A+ on food. (Everyone else, right now: duh Erin.)

I tried every single one, and I am not sorry.

Before her shower, Charlotte did her version of what all our kids call her "bottom dance" which is exactly what it sounds like, but is way more fun in a hotel room with a floor to ceiling mirror. (Not blog postable, obviously.)

I also braided Anneliese's wet hair before bed so she could have curls the next day, except I did too many and too small, and she ended up with crimps instead, which she loved but it made me cringe, so I bet you're excited for the next day's pictures now!!!

Day 4: Saarinen, and Mark Twain

The next morning (after a horribly loud and early wakeup while they jackhammered the parking lot right under our room window) (WHO DOES THIS? It is a hotel! Literally everyone is there to sleep. Everyone. Every single person. Fix your parking lot, sure, but tell your customers, dayum Marriott) we had tour tickets to go up into the famous arch.

Y'all, here is some information that is going to blow your mind. Are you ready?

Really ready? Okay here goes:

The arch is made of metal.

METAL.

Apparently everyone else already knew this. I did not. I thought it was like, limestone. Like the Washington Monument maybe. Which obviously makes no sense because that would be super heavy in ARCH FORM but whatever, I just never thought about it and it looks white so, okay. But now that I know it's metal, I can't believe I ever didn't know it was metal. It seems so obvious now!

(This concludes today's episode of Erin's Existential Crises About National Monuments.)

So we went up into the arch, which was surprisingly cool, and also surprisingly terrifying (look at this tiny little box they use to shoot you to the top, on a curved trajectory! It's 1960's fanciest technology! CUE WIDE EYES).

But once we were at the top, it was crazy cool to see down below, and all around the river and the city.

Did you know that the arch was built as a monument to westward expansion? I did not know that either! Did you know that it was built by Eero Saarinen? Apparently it's his most famous thing! (I could have told you at least five other things he built but had no idea he designed the arch.)

(Nathan also insisted all day that Saarinen is his favorite architect, despite 1- never having seen or heard of anything else built by him in his entire life, and 2- not being able to name even one other architect that ever existed, except himself with a box of legos. So.)

We braved our growing hangry feelings to take a riverboat cruise a la Mark Twain (who probably also had tourists share popcorn with him while listening to National Parks guides teach him about the Mighty Mississippi, I'm sure), whereupon Nathan tramped all over the boat, pretending to be the ship captain, watching out over the rail (for icebergs obvs), with the girls trailing along behind as (the world's most terrible) deck hands.

He seriously stood like this almost the whole time.

Mark took pictures of an abandoned power plant, because he nerds out about electricity in all forms and in all seasons of history (we have pictures of power lines from all over the world and if you think I am kidding, I will do a whole blog post of them).

Apparently this is the first hydroelectric power plant! Or the first one west of the Mississippi! (It's ON the Mississippi, does that really count, dudes?) Anyway even when I use lots of exclamation points it's not that exciting to me, but I like that he likes it, so okay. *shrug*

And then we used the selfie stick to take photos with the arch. As one does, when one is in St Louis (with crimped hair).

We had some fails as well.

Sometimes the fails are more excellent than the good ones, yknow?