drivetofive

Odometer:  483,488 miles

Trip Mileage:  2,406 miles

Three more states down!  I’m down to fewer than 10 hours remaining until I arrive at my easternmost destination on this trip.

Departing Springfield this morning.

I turned over 483,000 (and missed the picture by 2 miles; oops!) about 20-30 miles from St. Louis this morning.

Approaching downtown STL via I-44 East.

I snagged this picture of the St. Louis arch out my open sunroof while driving northbound on Memorial Drive toward my friend Dave’s office in downtown.

Once in St. Louis, I went to my friend Dave’s workplace.  I parked a couple spaces away from his 1995 “Granada Black Pearl” Legend coupe.  Our cars (and Dave & I!) have quite a bit of history together since we first met at the first Nat’l Acura Legend meet in 2005 in Dallas, Texas.

Dave and I, along with our friend Jen, walked to a great Italian place called Charlie Gitto’s.  The woman in the restaurant who I’d asked to take our picture didn’t do such a hot job of getting our entire bodies into the shot!

This picture was taken at Kiener Plaza.

This is the best I could do at getting a shot of the Illinois state line since I was on a bridge crossing the Mississippi River and had no place to stop.

I made a pit stop in Effingham, Illinois and saw some clever souvenirs.

Another version of the T-shirt said, “Where in the Effingham are we?”

Here’s something I was surprised to see:  93 octane fuel!  The highest we get back in AZ is 91.  I paid $3.82 for this.

Since I included the first “cross” picture, I should also include this new one that I got today.  This one is off I-70 near Effingham.  Somehow the crack on my windshield ended up looking like a lightning bolt!  Yikes.

Speaking of windshields:  At some point today I heard a loud crack and looked over to see that my windshield had sprouted a second huge line in it.  Good thing I held off on throwing a new windshield in this car until AFTER this trip!

Indiana state line!  This one was tricky – holding the camera out, capturing myself, the car, AND the state sign while avoiding getting sideswiped by cars on an interstate with a very narrow shoulder.  Risky business but all in the name of a very necessary photograph!

In Indy I talked with a local friend Gerry who I’d hoped to meet up with but our schedules didn’t align.  I must say, Indianapolis has some poorly kept roads!  Granted I can’t have high expectations while riding on a suspension with 483k miles, but these freeways wore me right out.

Starting to see some signs for Columbus!

How about a short side trip to Brazil?  Brazil – INDIANA – that is.

Welcome to Ohio!

Just inside the western Ohio border is Dayton.  I stopped at a town prior to that called Brookville for fuel.

Not long after that, I got caught in one of the worst downpours I’ve ever driven through.  Even wipers on full blast couldn’t keep up with the pace.  Though, I still managed to somehow take a picture while maintaining control of the car.  Multi tasking at its finest.

Another classic mirror shot.  Great sunset tonight after the rains cleared!

Just because…

And a sky shot.

Tonight’s motel selection must have been inspired because it happens to be directly behind Lindsay Acura here in Columbus.

A couple of observations:  So far on this trip, aside from Dave’s car in St. Louis, I’ve seen zero 1991-1995 Acura Legends.  None!  I guess after being out of production for 16 years, most of them seem to have disappeared from the roadways.

Received a number of phone calls and text messages today from my great friends & family checking on my progress!  Grateful to have so many people looking out for me while I’m out roaming the country.  Okay that’s it for now!  Next stop:  PA tomorrow.

This entry was posted on July 21, 2011 at 3:50 am and is filed under Legend, NALM, Road Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.