My friend Katie Q and her husband are relocating from Pennsylvania to California.  When she first shared the news with me, she explained they would be moving out separately due to work conflicts.  When she said she would be driving her car across the country she threw in “Do you want to come?”  It took me about 30 seconds to respond with a resounding YES!

A quick explanation.  I have two Katie’s in my world. Katie Q, my awesome friend, and Katie B, my awesome niece.

It has taken us some time to build a travel plan.  After making a determination to see as much as we could in two weeks, we narrowed down the plan a tiny bit from seeing ALL of the national parks (a bit ambitions for two months, let alone two weeks), to seeing as many as we could see.  

Our goals?

Days - 14  
States – 10
National Parks – 11

Yes, it is an ambitious trip… but we are an ambitious pair!

Today we left the homestead at 7:00 AM.  It was a cold wet morning.  It was a hard task saying good bye to Hubby and Jaxon.  Fortunately, they have each other.  A  few tears were shed.

Mine.

Katie Q and I were on our way!

We drove to Columbus, Ohio for lunch.  In Columbus we passed the home of Wonder Bread!  Wonder Bread was a staple sandwich ingredient in my household for school lunch sandwiches when I was a kid.  No Wonder Bread today.

We had a great meal at a place called North Star Café.  I had a Thai burrito with chicken and a peanut sauce.  Excellent food.  Fresh and good value.  We drove about three miles up the road and found Patty cake Bakery.

A quick side note…my friend Katie Q is vegan.  I am not.  I figured this trip would be a great opportunity to try new things and broaden my horizons with food.

Pattycake Bakery is a vegan bakery.  No eggs.  No butter.  No milk.  They had giant muffins and cookies.  They had beautiful cakes.  Vegan?  Yep.  We selected some cookies and a muffin.  I made my selections with names that were familiar so I could do comparisons to the foods I know.  We had a molasses cookie after lunch that was phenomenal.  It was moist with both sweet and spice flavors.  We even detected small bits of candied ginger.  I will fill you in on the other samplings as I enjoy them.

After Columbus, we continued onward.

We exited Ohio into Indiana.  Indiana was uneventful and FLAT.  Really FLAT.  Acres and acres and acres of farmland.  There were combines out cutting the soybeans and corn.  

After Indiana, we drove through Illinois.  

Guess what?

It was FLAT.  More farms.  By the way, a quick shout out to the farmers.  It is hard work and there is no time clock. Thank you farmers!

This evening we ended up in St. Louis, Missouri.  As we crossed the river into the city we could see the Arch standing tall and shiny against the sky line.  What a magnificent site.

We are staying at various places along our route.  We are choosing privately owned establishments  through Air B&B when we can.  When there are limited or no options, we are using hotels.  Tonight’s stay will be at an old brick building built in the 1800’s.  The owners are a delightful young couple who have been renovating the building and creating rooms for rent.  They greeted us when we arrived, showed us the space, the yard, and explained the neighborhood offering suggestions for dinner.

Dinner!

Dinner was at an establishment Katie Q has been following and was interested in trying.  The place is called LuLu’s Local Eatery and is less than a mile from where we are staying.  We enjoyed the time walking and stretching our legs after the miles in the car.  

LuLu’s is a vegan restaurant.  They had a variety on the menu and beer on tap.  The beer I sampled was called Single Speed from 4Hands Brewing located here in St. Louis.  Nice beer!  My meal was a Buffalo black bean burger on a pretzel roll  served with tater tots and a “walnut cheese” dipping sauce.  It was spicy, tasty, and filling.  Although the texture of a bean burger is vastly different than a good ol’ beef burger, it was fun to try something new and an enjoyable meal experience.

We are settled back in our room, ready to rest up for tomorrow.  

Life is good.