Driving thru KS, MO, IL

[pitchleague]

Well, my wife and I start our jaunt back to the midwest on Friday. We're leaving sunny Kingman, AZ and driving to Neenah, hoping to get there by Tuesday.

 

Anyways, we've got our first day covered, stopping at Petrified Forest National Park and then going to Tucumcari, NM and stopping for the night. It's days 2-4 that leave us wondering for sure what we will be doing.

 

We plan on stopping in Springfield, MO at the end of day 2 so we can go to some animal museum/zoo/aquarium on day 3. Anybody know of any cool places in southern Kansas to do? We're not interested in Dodge City this trip, and we visited the World's Largest Hand Dug Well 7 years ago.

 

After this animal thing on Sunday AM, we're driving to St. Louis. I've never been to the Gateway Arch so we're going to check that out. I've heard the St. Louis Zoo is good, from some of you here on this site. Are those things close at all or on opposite sides of town? Any recommendations on hotels in the northern part of St. Louis?

 

Finally, on Monday, we're driving from St. Louis to Neenah, via the interstate up Illinois. Anything neat to see in Lincoln land? I know it's not very scenic (flat from what I've heard).

 

Thanks for any help you can give.

[iluvlamp]

God bless you on the journey through Illinois. It's the worst, most boring ride in the country.

[TheCrew07]

I don't know, there's a tollway in IN or OH that's just as bad. The concrete was like 4 feet high, so in the little car I was in you basically saw treetops and sky.

[jason21nl]

I know right now you're in AZ correct? do you live in Neenah or have family there? Thats one heck of a drive, have fun with that.

 

God bless you on the journey through Illinois. It's the worst, most boring ride in the country

 

have you ever driven through North Dakota? man oh man is that ever boring.

[Boy Jeenius]

I'll be in Kansas City Tuesday and I think I'm headed to the Truman library just a minute or 4 east of KC. It's either that or the negro leauges museum is right in that area too.

[iluvlamp]

I drove through ND on the way to Montana. At least there was wildlife on the side of the road.

[BraunsBoyfriend]

Flying over IL is boring, I can only imagine driving it. It's seriously 100% flat and has miles and miles of grid roads. All perfect, little squares.

 

Quite a sight from the sky.

[Brian the Automator]

If you're stopping in Springfield, try heading a bit south to Lambert's Cafe.

 

Funny, I'll be at the St. Louis Zoo this Saturday...

[SeriesFinale]

You really should check out the City Museum when you're in St. Louis. Not like Milwaukee Public, it's a weird, completely different beast.

[TracyThom]

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God bless you on the journey through Illinois. It's the worst, most boring ride in the country.

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Agreed x 100. The decent scenery doesn't start until south of Marion, so pitchleague is going to miss all of that. There are very few billboards on the way to keep you entertained. I did the drive from Madison downstate Illinois to Nashville in the middle of the night. I had to drink lots of cappuccino to stay awake.

[Schlitz001]

God bless you on the journey through Illinois. It's the worst, most boring ride in the country.

 

You honestly think this is more boring than North Dakota? I travel the US extensively for my job and maybe only Kansas/Nebraska is even close to as boring as I-94 through ND.

[craigharmann]

I went to college in Nebraska and the drive from Des Moines, Iowa west on I-80 to Omaha is BORING! And with Nebraska, going west, once you get past Grand Island, it's snooze time.

[hawing]

Pitch, I think brewers19 would endorse your visiting the St. Louis Zoo, if you're going to visit a Missouri zoo. Just saying.

[sgtcluels]

I pity you. I've had to drive through Iowa, Missouri and Kansas about 4 times now. It's pretty boring and not much to see, especially on i80 in Iowa. They could at least put some turns in there to keep me awake. I almost hit a deer doing 85 outside of Kansas City a few months back, that wasn't fun.

[DatHoser]

If you can swing it, Merrimac Caverns in MO is pretty cool. I don't remember exactly where it is, but as a kid I loved going through it. It's also known as one of Jesse James hideouts.

 

I'll pile on to the driving through Illinois bit. North to south, it's the most boring drive in the midwest, with west to east through Ohio being a close second. Maybe you could skew west a little and go see the Field of Dreams in Iowa. I haven't seen it, but my brother (a fellow seamhead) loved it.

[Brian the Automator]

[ If you can swing it, Merrimac Caverns in MO is pretty cool. I don't remember exactly where it is ]

 

If you're anywhere in the state of missouri, you'll see a billboard for it.

[Fatter than Joey]

I hate driving through So. Ill. -- it is my least favorite part of our country

[pitchleague]

we're planning on hitting Iowa, Nebraska on the drive back. I don't know if the wife has been to Field of Dreams or not, but I have (played a game there, too). It is very cool to see.

 

I think we are going to skip the museum thing in Springfield and try to make the zoo in St. Louis.

 

As for Illinois, I've known it's going to be boring, so thanks for the pity. Luckily, we have XM radio so hopefully I can find a ballgame or something to listen to while we're driving that stretch. Might be a good time to let my wife drive, too, and I can take a nap or something. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/glasses.gif

 

I've done the Iowa-Nebraska route before and, yes, it's quite boring, too. But I went to college in Iowa so I know of some things to do and routes to take to take some boredom off.

 

Also done the North-South Dakota trip, too. Also, very boring but it does get a bit scenic in spots.

 

Keep up the posts with some other ideas. Thanks for everything so far.

[craigharmann]

If you're going through Nebraska, most definitely stop at the Omaha zoo....it's amazing! One of the more redeeming things about Omaha and Nebraska in general!

[adamb100]

I pity you, driving through IL from top to bottom. IL is possibly the most boring state to go through after you leave Chicago/Rockford.

[parkside21]

As you know (I think you helped me with ideas in a previous thread) we drove from Apple-ton to Phoenix back in March for spring training. We took the Iowa-Nebraska-Denver-Durango, CO-Flagstaff route on the way there, and on the way back took NM-Amarillo-Ok City-Kansas-Iowa route. We didn't do too much stopping along the way, so I can't help with too much, but from what we did see, Denver looked like a really neat place to spend a night, though it doesn't sound like you're going that way. We thought all the statues of dinosaurs eating other dinosaurs in New Mexico was weird, since they looked kind of vicious and not kid-friendly, but we avoided those anyways. There is a crater thing not far from the AZ/NM border that I heard was pretty cool, my friend had already seen it though so we didn't stop again.

 

Nebraska was the most boring part of the drive (at least west of Omaha anyways), since the "towns" were about two hours apart...but it did feel weird getting passed by a state trooper when I was already doing 80....you said you're from Iowa, so you know that stretch...but for some reason, it seemed to be a really busy stretch of interstate, so for Iowa, we were surprised at the traffic....same with New Mexico...a 2 lane interstate serving as the only major east/west roadway in a large sized state with exits spaced 30-45 miles apart was not a good idea...if there's an accident, you can be stuck there for hours (it took us almost a full day to get through New Mexico due to a Greyhound accident).

 

Anyways, I can't offer much in the way of sightseeing, but reflecting back on our trip is fun...it was long (duh), but I'm still glad we did it. Driving through southern Colorado and through the Rockies was very, very neat.

 

If you do stop in St. Louis though, I recommend the Bowling Hall of Fame and Musuem (if it's still there)....and also the Negro League Musuem in Kansas City is supposed to be excellent.

 

As for your final destination, it could be worse...you could be going to Menasha, http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

Let us know how it goes!

[parkside21]

I guess I should have mentioned, besides Nebraska, I've always hated driving through Missouri, so I avoid that drive whenever I can. Stopping in North Platte, NE is something I would avoid too...the hotel we stayed at was adequate, but the town itself was a total, total dump.

 

Four Corners wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, in fact, it wasn't that exciting at all, and it was actually kind of sad in a way...but I'm still glad we stopped there anyways, since I'm a bit of a geography buff and I figured hey...when else am I ever going to be near here?

 

If you're going through or near Oklahoma City at all, I highly, highly recommend stopping at the memorial and taking the tour....I heard it's changed in the last few years, but it's just one of those things that you have to see to really understand it I guess...

[iluvlamp]

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You honestly think this is more boring than North Dakota? I travel the US extensively for my job and maybe only Kansas/Nebraska is even close to as boring as I-94 through ND.

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I don't travel either route extensively so I will still say Illinois. I agree that ND was no fun. There just seemed to be more going on. I saw elk, deer, foxes...etc.

[rwa12]

Those parts of STL are fairly close. The arch/Laclede's Landing area is about a 5-10 minute drive to Forest Park (home of the zoo, and a ton of other stuff). Any of the hotels around the landing are pretty nice, not sure what you are looking for, but the Drury Inn is a nice hotel that is right downtown.

[pitchleague]

yeah, I looked at the Drury Inn Downtown. It's in our "price range" as is the Hampton Inn Downtown.

 

My main thing is that we would be leaving St. Louis on Monday and I'd like to avoid downtown 9 AM traffic if possible. I figured a hotel on the edge of town somewhere would probably be better.