Route 66 - Day 2 St.Louis

I wanted to get an early start for the 2nd day so that I could maximize the driving time at daylight. Note: I wanted! so I checked out from the Motel around 11:30 am and were on my way apx at noon. It was about an hour drive to St. Louis from where I was.

I wanted to check St. louis pretty quickly since I wanted to be close to Oklahoma City for next day. There were two things I wanted to check out while in city: the St. Louis Arch and "Ted Drewes Frozen Custard" shop. Now the Arch was easy to find since ..well.. you can't really miss it. Build in 1963 as a monument to the western expansion it stands 630 feet (192m) high dominating the city skyline. I actually never realized how big it was from the pictures I've seen, but it was massive! Underneath the arch there was a free museum about the western expansion and a chance to take a ride to the top of the arch. Now normally I've been trying to do all the possible touristic events and rides I've found, but this one was about 60 minutes long and I really wanted to move on quite quickly. So I got my picture taken with the arch and moved on.

As you leave St. Louis I tried to follow the Route 66 as much as possible (even though it was much slower driving). And then by chance I drove by the Ted Drewes Famous Frozen Custard place, Turned around and found out that it is actually an Ice Cream shop that just happens to be world famous by the route. So I helped myself with a Apple Pie crust ice cream.. and man.. IT WAS GOOD!

My next stop after st. Louis was to find the Meramec Caverns which are famous for being the "Jesse James hideout" Jesse and his brother Frank hid some of their loot to this cavern and escaped through the underground river. The cavern nowadays are owned by a local family and there is lots of tourist shops and a tour that you can take to explore the caverns and their stalagmites and stalactites. I've actually never seen them before so I was very exited taking the tour. It was about 1h 30min tour and about a kilometer of walking in the caves. It was really nicely put together with the lighting and all and was definitely worth the time and admission!

After the Caverns it was starting to get already darker so I started driving the highway toward Oklahoma City. I arrived to a small town right next to the city around 11 pm and stayed for the night.