Category: Personal

Mississippi here we come

Sunday April 5th 2020

Ok let me say this right off the top … we did not get a cross the Mississippi River today as we had planned, oh we could have but we decided, supporting one of our favourite restaurants in a time of need was more important, not to mention we had been thinking about this dinner since we first threw the idea out. So we are tucked into another Cracker Barrel, I know but it’s been so quiet in their lots right now compared to truck or rest stops … plus I love their breakfast.

So let’s talk about where we have came from and where we are heading for, today marked our seventh day in a row of travel. With today’s 193 miles (310 kilometres) added in our total is 1512 miles (2433 kilometres) leaving us around 700 miles (1127 kilometres) to go, so we are averaging just over 200 miles (320 kilometres) per day which is our normal speed. So that is where we came from, now to as where we are heading after we cross the Ole Mississippi River tomorrow morning we are heading toward Chicago as we continue north to the bottom of Lake Michigan, from there we will head easterly toward Port Huron Michigan and the Blue Water Bridge And back into Canada. We were planing on staying a little further south to catch up with the Ward family but we know with the pandemic, avoiding any unnecessary contact is the right thing to do, it just means a little longer visit in the fall. So all indications have us at or near the border on Wednesday afternoon, at that point we will do our final supply run before our mandatory fourteen quarantine after crossing the border, I would like to cross on Wednesday afternoon as it just starts our 14 days one day earlier so it’s done on a Thursday morning instead of a Friday but not a big deal one way or another.

So I discovered today some of the worst and stupidest drivers in a while, passenger vehicle traffic was higher today, I thought Missouri was on a shelter in place order but I must have mistaken, and the ones on the road today all seemed to be on cell phones, infact one particularly dumb driver was driving along at 50 in a 60 zone while texting on the steering wheel and sucking on a cigarette, all at once, obviously not one of Missouri’s finer specimens. What makes it stand out even more is the fact that while the traffic is lighter than usual, you can notice the dumber ones even easier.

Sauce on the side

The Strike Zone

Mozzarella, Sliced Apple Brats, Bacon, Giardiniera & Pepper Mix and Havarti Cheese . Served with Queso on the side.

This was my choice for dinner, Miss Laurie ordered the 5-0, with? Yes you guessed it has pineapple.

We first encountered this little restaurant, while visiting St. Louis for one of Laurie’s Scentsy conventions, we needed to find lunch each day, we tripped on this fond and have visited it every time back through the area. Sauce on the Side is a fast, casual restaurant specializing in gourmet calzones and fresh salads. The three owners/operators have been friends for decades, all sharing the same dream – to feed the community and provide you with the best service possible. Now expanding throughout the Midwest, they hope to find others who would like to share the same dream by making their own into a reality. When we first visited a number of years ago it was a little hole in the wall in downtown, when we visited three years ago it was redone at a new downtown location, today we are visiting a franchise location but hoping for the same quality, and we have not been disappointed … mmmm mmmm good … just saying

What the heck!

As I have reported earlier, we are in Missouri heading toward the Mississippi River near St. Louis as we trek back to Ontario. And because of some dreary cold weather we have been watching a little more television than normal. And while most of the shows are just mindless entertainment what we have found the most entertaining are the commercials, like you just can’t make this stuff up, right now “My Dish” app has not been working to keep the local stations updated as to our location so we are presently watching Tulsa Oklahoma television channels. We are watching with a coffee and Baileys this Sunday morning and are watching all the commercials for Tornado shelters to place in your garage, the reality is it looked like a round “port a potty” that is bolted to the concrete floor of the garage. So the warning is sounded and you rush to the garage and lock your butt in this steel out house until the storm passes. That commercial is followed by a restoration company that you could call in to clean up any storm damage that your property may have suffered, which was followed by a loan company that will give you cash for your jewelry, basically like a pawn shop but because of the Covid19 they were offering it interest free for 90 days. Just add to that, the daily weather reports all talk about the severe storm level everyday and explain how they are coming into the spring storm season which peaks in May. As we sit listening to all these warnings, we keep wondering why not just move? If you don’t know whether your house will be there after you come home from work, the need for storm shelters and such … it makes us realize how every area of the country has their own issues, whether it is the need for air conditioners while we were in Arizona or the storms in Missouri and Oklahoma, each area has their own needs, and someone just adapts to fill those needs.

It’s kind of like the weathermen in each area has such different highlights, like when we used to winter in the north, the winter storm coverage would be all inclusive, and in Arizona it was all about a rain storm, and here in the Midwest it’s all about tornadoes, while in the summer it’s all about the hurricanes on the coastal areas, again each area has its own environmental characteristics and the need to stay informed to each area. It is one of the reasons I have an app on my phone that warns of severe weather in any area we may be visiting, just the need to be informed. But apparently this cold snap we are enjoying is not good for tornadoes, so every weather pattern has a couple of sides.

Just as a warning I do feel a true rant in the making, over some of the stupidity that running so rampant right now … so stay tuned.

Please stay safe and be well!