West to the Mississippi

Friday, August 18…

On the road by 9am and onto I-270 shortly thereafter. It’s a straight shot west to St. Louis. Once again I was struck by the number of trucks. Today, though, we also encountered some humor via road signs and other advertising. The Welcome to Jasper County (IN) sign proudly declared this area the Manure Capital of the U.S.  And the roadside advertising for Fair Oak Farms was highly creative: a giant table, several milk tankers (for highway transport) w/ witty messages, and several other eye- or ear-catching invitations. Below are a couple examples.

We also saw lots of beautiful fields, often dotted with 21st century windmills.

Precision placement...

...and free range.

First drive in to the city

We arrived at our campground (east bank of the Mississippi - we can see St. Louis) mid-afternoon and decided to make the most of our time by going right into town and finding some live music. (An earlier GOOGLE search had indicated lots of venues with “music all day.”) Two of these were in the Soulard neighborhood (also noted as the “heart of St. Louis). Across the bridge we went to the Soulard Farmer’s Market… and found it nearly deserted - just a handful of vendors. Greg bought some beautiful tomatoes, and I got a fresh-squeezed lemonade, but even at 3:30 most growers were starting to pack up. So we wandered. Back on GOOGLE, I now couldn’t seem to bring up either of the 2 venues I’d been most interested in, and others we checked out didn’t offer music ‘til later in the evening, and we weren’t hungry enough to consider a meal yet. So we wandered a bit more, picked up a small watermelon from the market, and then headed back to the MH to do better planning for tomorrow.

BlogThoughts... Fair Oak Farms is an educational farm “adventure” site, intended, I suppose, to acquaint urbanites with the joys of raising crops and livestock. I suspect they host a lot of school field trips, but it looks like it would be a lot of fun. Of course there’s a restaurant and all sorts of other amenities. We did enjoy the whimsical advertising. (We must have seen at least a dozen different displays.) Despite our disappointment in finding the Farmer’s Mkt practically empty, I was glad we went. Soulard is one of the oldest SL neighborhoods, and the market itself reminded me very much of the Charleston (SC) City Market, which dates back to approximately the same time. (The first public market in Charleston, however, was established in 1692.)

Fair Oak Visitor's Map

(...since 1779)

BlogPostscript (8/19)…  So we’re watching the news tonight (Saturday), and this piece comes on featuring the town of Casey, Illinois (pop around 3000). Apparently awhile back this very small town decided to make a name for itself by going BIG and is now home to several Guinness World Record constructions. I mentioned to Greg that it would have been a fun place to visit. Then, out of curiosity, I looked up the location. It sits just off 
I-70, and we literally drove right past it yesterday.