St. Louis, Missouri to Springfield, Illinois (Mon. Aug. 2)

We headed back into St. Louis today. First stop Do-Nuts Drive in. We had heard they serve up the best donuts along Route 66 and we heard right. They were so good!!! Mrs. Murphy’s in Southwick (unbelievably good donuts if you have never had the pleasure) would have some competition from this place. After grabbing donuts we headed back to the Gateway Arch. Luckily for us the campground let us leave the camper there so we didn’t have to deal with taking it back into the city. The streets and parking lots along the river being flooded really posed a challenge with the camper yesterday. Today we could park in a parking garage right buy the arch. It took a long time to get to the top as one of the elevators were acting up so they had to take people from that side and bring them in front of us on our side. But we eventually got up top. Wow is it tight up there. The ceiling is really low and the width of the arch up top is really small. It is tough moving around all the people up there.

Before heading back to the campground we stopped and explored Chain of Rocks Bridge that connects Missouri and Illinois. This was an original bridge for travelers crossing the Mississippi on Route 66. It eventually was closed down and is now for walking or biking only. The bridge is over a mile long and has a 22 degree bend in it.

From the bridge it was back to grab the camper and then to lunch. We first tried the Luna Café known for being one of the oldest continuously operating businesses on 66. It has a bit of a history as a gangster hang out and brothel. There is a red cherry in the sign and rumors have it that if the girls were in the red cherry would be lit. Unfortunately there was no eating there as they really aren’t much of a restaurant anymore. More of a bar with chicken wings and the wings were not going to be ready for awhile. So it was off to the Hen House and old 66 chain family restaurant for a good lunch.

Driving the Route became a challenge today as in many areas there are two different stretches of the road. Usually one was up to the 40’s and then one the 40’s and beyond. We never knew which one to choose. Once we had to turn around and do the other stretch as we were not finding what we needed to find. It makes it much longer to get anywhere when you have to turn around and redo the distance.

One stop we made in the afternoon was to an Antiques Mall which was an old Coliseum Ballroom where well known people such as Guy Lombard, Chuck Berry and Tommy Dorsey played. We didn’t actually go into the building we stopped to look at all the stuff outside. There was a muffler man holding an ice cream cone, a huge tricycle that had to be at least 20 feet tall, a space ship and many other things. The best was the ice cream cone shaped ice cream shop which of course we helped support.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. We had hoped to visit at Henry’s Rabbit Ranch, a well known 66 spot but we arrived at 5:30 and they close at 4:00. Probably just as well. We hear the owner really likes to talk and can go on for hours. We were anxious to make it at least to Springfield, IL today and probably would not have if we had met up with him. So we took a few pictures and headed on to Springfield.