On Monday, we headed out for our longest trip yet in RoVer Too…4.5 hours southwest to St. Louis, Missouri. And, of course, 4.5 hours on Google Maps equals about six hours in RV time, between slower speeds and rest breaks…so we always “round up” on the quoted time!

Our route was primarily I-55, which replaced the original Route 66 for much of the path from Chicago to St. Louis, so we passed through lots of “route 66 towns” along the way, each of them trying to attract tourists to the nostalgic past of “The Mother Road”. Someday we will do a Route 66 road trip to check out some of these towns and their “roadside attractions”! We made a pit stop along the way near Pontiac IL, one of those Route 66 towns, at “Wally’s”. It’s a massive convenience store, gift shop, gas station, EV charging station, etc. They bill themselves as “Home of the Great American Roadtrip” and their shop is full of fun, kitschy stuff, including a 1976 Winnebago repurposed into a merchandise display! Turns out they have exactly two locations; the other one is about five minutes from our campground in Fenton, MO!

Our previous trips were all short enough that Mark drove the entire trip, so I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Ford F-150 with RoVer Too behind it. In fact, I’ve barely driven the pickup truck – there’s been very little reason to – so when we picked up RoverToo from our storage place on Sunday, I drove the 25 minutes back to our townhouse to get some practice. The highways don’t bother me at all – I was more concerned about parking lots and turns because the wheelbase is very different from driving RoVer and towing our Buick. The trip back on Sunday went smoothly and the extra-wide mirrors that Mark bought definitely help a lot! So, we “shared” the driving on Monday and all went well (although Mark did quite a bit more than half!).

As we approached St. Louis, we got our first glimpse of the Gateway Arch…the photo isn’t great since it’s through the windows of a moving truck; hopefully I’ll get better ones later this week when we visit the Arch!

Our campground, the St. Louis West/Historic Route 66 KOA, is literally on Old Route 66. We’re pleasantly surprised at how shady our campsite is, and very glad we got a level site – some of the sites near us are definitely not what we’d call “level”! The water pressure here is the best we’ve ever had. Not sure if it’s the campground, or the new pressure regulator that Mark bought. We won’t know for sure until our next trip when we use the same gadget at a different campground. Fingers crossed it’s the pressure regulator!

Tuesday we got an early start, as we had tickets for the Missouri Botanical Garden and the afternoon forecast was for temperatures close to 90 degrees…so we figured the morning would be a bit more comfortable! Several months ago, I had seen an ad somewhere that there would be a Dale Chihuly glass installation at the botanical gardens starting in early May, and because I am a huge fan of his work, this trip was planned around the timing for the installation. Mark and I have been fortunate to see two of his permanent exhibitions, in Seattle at Chihuly Garden & Glass, and in St. Petersburg FL at Chihuly Collection…plus we’ve seen his work at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, The Bellagio in Las Vegas (ceiling), and he even created a chandelier that hangs in the expansion of the Eastman Theatre in Rochester!

I was super excited to see an installation within a botanical garden, and it did not disappoint! Simply incredible. The Missouri Botanical Garden is impressive on its own – and is frequently ranked as one of the best in the nation – but when you add in Chihuly’s amazing glass sculptures, it’s beyond description. Get ready for an abundance of photos – I took close to 400 photos…but I promise I won’t make you look at all of them! As I said to Mark, it was basically impossible to take a bad photo there, surrounded by so much beauty! Chihuly’s team really does an incredible job with choosing pieces and placing them so that they blend with nature. Enjoy!

These were inside the “Climatron” building…

More to come this week as we explore St. Louis!