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| St. Louis, MO 1:40pm. Hallelujah, we made it to Pappys in roughly 26.5 hours. This is also when I discovered my camera lens sort of broke. I was too hungry to care. |
We're drooling at the smell coming from the restaurant. There are two colleges within walking distance so even on a Monday afternoon we had to wait for our food. Inspiration for this stop came from Man vs. Food and the Big Ben challenge re-named the Adam Bomb. Both consist of a full rack of ribs, a beef brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sandwich, ¼ of a chicken and 4 sides. The Adam Bomb adds a Hot Link Frito Pie. We weren't that ambitious but we were hungry. The ribs by themselves don't need any sauce. The rub and the seasoning used on the ribs are excellent! I should have ordered a full rack but an overfull stomach and little sleep didn't seem wise. Where's the Pepto? Forty-two minutes later and we were back on the road. That was a fast meal!
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| Few people take their BBQ'ing more seriously than Pappy's. So when I write that it was a mistake to order the pulled pork sandwich it's not because the sandwich wasn't good. It's just that the Ribs were so much better, I wish I would have ordered a full rack instead. |
Lunch was invigorating and we crossed the Poplar Street Bridge into Illinois. Our destination state at last! We stopped for diesel at our 2nd Springfield of the trip and all seemed well. We had about 150 miles to go which was nothing in comparison to what had already been done. As the sun began to set I hit a mental brick wall. There was barren farmland all around; corn on one side of the road, beans on the other. In late October everything had already been harvested or was dying. We were out of jokes and stories (dirty or not) and at this point we were both over it.
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| Warning – Car related content. Belvidere, IL is home to a 3.3 million square feet of automotive manufacturing plant. Currently the plant produces the Jeep Compass, Dodge Caliber and Jeep Patriot all of which seem doomed to rental fleets. The late hot-blooded Neon SRT-4 was made here. Ironically no Plymouth Belvederes were made in Belvidere. |
At 7:00pm (5:00pm Arizona time) we arrived. Twenty-nine hours and fifty minutes. Damn Google maps was optimistic by 50 minutes which was pretty impressive given the distance calculated but I was too exhausted to be complimentary of anything. Instead of doing the smart thing and going right to bed we un-hooked the trailer and headed to a townie bar. The record player all but stopped when we walked in. There were two younger women in the place for all fifteen of the guys in the bar to be jealous over. After thirty hours of torture in the truck we had an amplified feeling of what are you looking at!? As Jack Burton always says “Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things.” We ordered some greasy food served in a wicker basket and washed it down with rum and cokes. Everything seemed lame or more likely we were being lame but it was time for a shower and bed.
