Day Two

First things first. Mt. Vernon Hampton Inn rating:

Cleanliness: 9/10

Hospitality: 8/10

Bed comfort: 10/10

Water pressure: 10/10

Breakfast: 7/10 – they had individually wrapped baked goods, yogurt, cereal, fruit. No hot breakfast but that worked for us!

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9:15am and we are back on the road! I had to get a picture of the art piece below that was chilling outside down the road from our hotel. Thought it was really interesting and unique!

The first stop of the day on our journey west was to Collinsville, IL to visit the Cahokia Mounds National Historic Site. These mounds have been here since the 10th century. Cahokia is the largest prehistoric Indian community in America north of Mexico, covering six square miles with over 120 mounds used for ceremonial, burial, and other purposes. Today, only 80 mounds remain on the 3.5 square miles of the park. The biggest mound is Monk mound, whose base covers 14 acres and is 100 ft tall (and it takes exactly 154 stairs to get to the top!). It was amazing to experience and see something so ancient that is still here with us today.

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After leaving the Cahokia Mounds, we head into St. Louis to make one last pitstop before putting Salina, KS into Waze as our next stop. Jill snapped a picture of the lovely Arch on our way into town.

The Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site is next up! Truthfully, we only stopped here to purchase the American the Beautiful annual pass to get us into all the National Parks, but we decided to walk through the Grant Museum. This site commemorates the life, military career and presidency of Grant, as well as his wife – her family home White Haven is preserved on the property (we could have taken a tour but I wanted to get on the road).

Below are some of the (timely) contributions made by Ulysses S. Grant during his time as a general and president. One of the things the site wants to convey in the museum is how the use of slaves at White Haven could have been a strong influencer on Grant’s role in abolishing slavery. Also below is a timeline from when Col. Dent (Grant’s wife Julia Dent’s father) purchased White Haven until Julia’s death. Jill is particularly fond that they call out the introduction of the potato chip in 1853.

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After we picked up our annual pass, we headed west on I-70 to Salina, KS. Okay, one more stop in St. Louis. For lunch! We learned that Panera in St. Louis is named St. Louis Bread Co., as this is where Panera started! Also, Panera = very COVID-friendly! They had a great setup there. After lunch, we crossed over yet another river – The Missouri River – with yet another impressive bridge.

When we finally made it into Kansas, it seemed like rolling greens were surrounding us, which I thought was odd. Because it’s Kansas. We actually found that we were driving through the Konza Prairie Biological Station, an 8,616 acre preserve of native tall grass prairie. It was surprisingly beautiful and seemed like it went on for miles.

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Guys, we made it to Salina, KS. And it was before the sun went down! Now this Hampton Inn gets a 10/10 for cleanliness with the lysol clean seal.

Finally, how could we stay in Kansas without getting some authentic Kansas BBQ?! This is from Hickory Hut BBQ – a drive-thru BBQ joint – that had some of the best sauce I’ve ever had. And now that we’ve had our fill, it’s time for bed so day three can begin!

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MILES: 523 miles total

HOURS: 11 hours with a bunch of stops – including two 30+ minute ones

COWS VIEWED FROM CAR: 1.7 million

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