Florida to Missouri - Days 1 & 2

After saying good-bye to Florida, we packed up the Incognito Cruiser (current Geezermobile) and headed off into the sunset.

You could actually say we ran away from the sunrise since we left so early, but we were, ultimately, heading west – just not the first day! Since we've made so many trips up and down I-75 to Tennessee and across Tennessee on I-24, we'll spare you most of those pictures this time. I did take some shots of the bridge going over the Tennessee River just off of the Kentucky Dam. Because the car was loaded down, (Did you see how she's low ridin'?!) we decided not to go very far off the interstate this trip, so we didn't drive on down to the dam.

We spent the first night in Paducah, Kentucky. That was the longest leg of the trip and the one that didn't have stops.

Day 1, roughly 775 miles.

We waited till after the sun came up to head out the next morning. You know we had to stop in Metropolis!

It's definitely worth a stop by to see Superman, the Daily Planet car, and the museum. And, there wasn't a whole lot going on early on a Sunday morning!

A not-so-mild-mannered man walks into a phone booth . . . (Remember those??!!)

And look who emerges!!

Jim Croce was wrong!! I had no problems when tugging on Superman's cape!

Not far down the road, we made it to St. Louis. Again, not wanting to go downtown with the Geezermobile loaded down, we only got a distant look at the arch

as we were driving over this beautiful bridge.

What hit me while driving through St. Louis was the derelict buildings that appeared to have people living in them. Buildings like this had blankets hanging in the window holes, potted plants growing by the window holes, etc. I've never seen slums that looked this bad and still looked lived in by more than an occasional, random squatter or flop spot for junkies. This one with the flag just outside was particularly poignant to me.

We made it to Kansas City, and headed north again. Kansas City reminded Bruce of Ecuador, just in reverse. In Ecuador, the lines are just a suggestion. In Kansas City, everybody stays in their lane, even though the lanes aren't well marked in most places (that we drove through). Here, each lane was a different color, but that wasn't always the case!

We spent the night in St. Joseph, just north of Kansas City, ending day 2 at roughly 500 miles.