BJ Nemeth's Blog

Photos: Rhapsody at the St. Louis Arch, Pappy's Smokehouse BBQ, and the weather in Iowa City where I slept overnight in the car.

I managed to get ahead of the worst of the storm, but the roads in southern Missouri were still messy enough to slow down my progress -- I didn't go faster than 30 mph for the first 2.5 hours, just to be on the safe side. (I saw several cars that had slid off the road, so some level of caution was justified.)

My progress was also slowed by lack of sleep -- I stopped to nap several different times. I never felt dangerously tired, but thought I could use the sleep.

The delays cost me, because I didn't arrive in St. Louis until the sun was setting, and the light was less than ideal for photos of Rhapsody in front of the St. Louis Arch. But with a dreary grey sky all day, the photos weren't going to be fantastic anyway. The good news is that Rhapsody and I plan to hit St. Louis again on the return trip in March. The weather should be warmer, and we'll spend a full day in St. Louis to enjoy the city.

We got some BBQ suggestions via Twitter, and I picked up takeout from Pappy's Smokehouse BBQ. It was Friday evening and they were very busy, and sold out of a few items. The guy in front of me got the last of the chicken, and the ribs were long gone. I had the pulled pork, which was quite good, but I look forward to trying their chicken & ribs when we return in the spring.

After dinner, we drove north to Iowa, the 8th state of this trip. It was my first time in the state, bringing my lifelong total to 45. (The 5 states I haven't been to yet? Alaska, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Maine.)

I slept for the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Iowa City, Iowa, when the temps were in the single digits. I was thinking about delaying this leg of the trip when the projected temps were below zero, but the weather warmed up a bit to a level I consider safe. The 50-state road trip will look a lot nicer (with less back-and-forth and zig-zagging) if I get Minnesota and the Dakotas out of the way now. So that's where we're headed today.

Throughout this trip, I'll update this blog once per day. For more frequent updates, check my Twitter feed.