The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Our family did a bit of traveling between Christmas and New Years to visit relatives in Missouri. It was mostly uneventful, though I did notice the Payday Loan stores have infected St.Joe, the town where “the Pony Express began and Jesse James ended,” like a plague since the last time I visited.
Driving east on I-70 out of Kansas City it seemed every other exit had an adult book store, with some being more risque than others. In the interest of time we decided to pass on the best pizza this side of Italy, Shakespeares, and opted for a Dairy Queen off the side of the interstate… of course, it was across the street from the “Adult Mega-Store.” At least this one didn’t advertise having a video arcade, so I didn’t have to explain that one to the kids.
…and the trip continued to Kingdom City and onto route 54 where some restless jackass in a beemer with Illinois plates thought it was a good idea to pass three cars straight on a busy two lane highway just before the town of Curryville. Unfortunately Barney Fife didn’t have his usual speed trap set up at the edge of town or that guy would’ve been thrown in the pokey- no questions asked.
Our final stop is always the the quaint little town of Louisiana on the banks of the Mississippi for a potty break and some cheap Missouri gas. I used the restroom immediately after my son and saw “call 1-866… for clean gay sex” scribed into the stall door. After washing my hands turned to the paper towel dispenser next to the condom display which sold $.75 XL Magnums in addition to other ribbed and lubed varieties.
Just when I was about to write off Missouri as officially going into the crapper, a nicely dressed man in suit and tie overheard my wife asking the teenage girl behind the counter if they sold Dramamine. They didn’t, and girl behind the counter wasn’t exactly nice, but the strange man made up for it by calling his wife who quickly delivered a Dramamine pill to help out a traveling family with a young girl who was car-sick. As he shook my hand, he introduced himself as a minister at a local church and wished us luck on the rest of the drive home.
Missouri’s not so bad after all… it just depends on who you meet.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
You can get Shakespeare’s Pizza shipped to you in dry ice.
Their website is pretty funny, too.
Louisiana, MO also has a big tree & rose nursery, doesn’t it? I think it was one of the last acquisitions Foster & Gallagher made. Maybe it was Mexico I was thinking of.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:12 am
You’re thinking of Stark Bros, a huge nursery with a mail order catalog on the west side of Louisiana- it was purchased by Foster & Gallagher several years back but still survives even after the bankruptcy.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Peoriaillinoisan, I have been an avid reader for a few months as a Peorian expat living a few states away. When it comes to wanting a little slice of home, I think I would prefer your blog to listening to Markley and Luciano on WMBD. (Although I don’t know how much of a compliment that is, it was meant as one. Really.)
Needless to say I was utterly surprised when I found a road related gripe in one of your blogs. The one about the beemer in Illinois plates zooming on by. It elevated your blog to the highest level of cliche. Then you almost, not quite, but almost threw in a gripe about an annoying cashier.
Your articles about Peoria are quite charming. Please don’t be tempted to turn this into another chronicle of the annoying things that happened to you on a given day. There are already 10 million of those blogs on the internet, which is 10 million to many.
Regards.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Well, at least my “annoying things” post had a happy ending!
Thanks for reading.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Well, Billy Bob Jolie, if that’s even your REAL name, no one’s forcing you to read anyone’s blog. If you don’t like them, don’t read them. It’s like changing the station on the TV, except with millions of stations instead of 500. Honestly, I don’t think anyone will miss your sharp responses.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Cory,
“If you don’t like it, don’t read/watch/listen to it” is quite a fine glittering generality my friend, but it doesn’t apply here. There are plenty of blogs I don’t read, the point here is that I do read this blog and don’t want it to become cliche and boring. So basically I was encouraging the author to stick with his Peoria posts and move his “this one guy I met today had an attitude and annoyed me” posts to the recycle bin.
I am distressed to learn no one will miss my sharp responses, though. I thought everyone loved a well versed writer who used pompous words, and if there’s one thing I want in life it is adoration from “the people.” Upon learning of my unpopularity, I will now go cry and engage in eating all of the Belgian chocolate I received for Christmas in one sitting.
Regards.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hmmm.. there seems to be a theme with your travels, first prostitutes and now porn shops…. it’s crazy how rampant those are in MO. I wonder why? I mean, they must be legal here (ie Swinger’s World), so why don’t we have off ramp porn?
January 4th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Belgian chocolate IS delicious.