Day One of Cross Country Trip

The first day was a lot of driving, but still a blast. I woke up before 5:30 and drove over to Mark's to start getting all packed up. Mr Walls gave us his huge survival packet, roughly 80 pages, and then couldn't pronounce compass correctly. Mark started driving and trekked for a while, and the push up grind began during the first stop of the trip. I got out of the car surprised to see all three of them doing push ups, but we all did a couple sets then got back in the car. Danny then took over driving, and got a ticket while were still in Virginia. Good for him. The cop said he was going 82 then sped up to 86, but I definitely didn't witness that. Anyway he only charged him for going 80, and then we got a move on. We passed by some cool bridges the first day.

I am a huge fan of bridges. I drove from Louisville to the Kroger store in Mt Vernon, and the legend of the special began. I drove through the first time change, from Eastern to Central. There was a little biker that drove past and shouted "What's the point?" as we were doing push ups in the parking lot. Solid kid. We picked up a Kroger leaf (stalk of something) and placed in sticking out the passenger window. Mark drove into St Louis, over another awesome bridge, and we saw the Arch. It ended up being around a 13 hour drive to St Louis. After we got up and were walking around the Arch, Connor said the arch was 137 feet tall, then changed it to 105 and said, "what, do you guys think it is bigger?" Turns out that the Arch was 630 feet tall and 630 feet across.

Naturally Connor's first instinct told him that it was a square, because the sides are equal. Oh Connor. We walked alongside the mighty Mississippi, and then the spontaneity began. We were about to go to our dear friend Alex's house, when we saw the lights from Busch Stadium, and went to the Cardinals game. We got free tickets from a very nice family as they were leaving, but it turns out that they did not work, so we bought some cheap seats and snuck down so we could get closer.

Nice sunset, and we got on the big screen several times. We could not stay for the whole game however, as we were hungry, so we went and ate steaks at Alex's. Her family was so nice for staying up to greet us. After dinner we went with Alex and got ice cream at Andy's. It was a nice little shop, but they made it sound awful. It would be a big hit in Stafford. I realized that very often throughout this trip, that in some areas there were so many cool spots that I knew all my friends would love. I had a loaded brownie sundae, then had extreme food coma and laid down on a bench. We went back to her house and all showered and talked, stayed up sort of late but the bed was nice. That's when I got my first journal. I lost it two days later. It happens. I downloaded the first season of House of Cards from Connor's Netflix, and then slept on the mattress on the floor, next to Danny. Mark slept on the couch which was very comfortable, and Connor slept in her bed. Alex slept upstairs in her guest room. I cannot emphasize enough how gracious I am for her hospitality.