Thelma and Lousie take on the Midwest AKA as Daisy & Buttercup

I'm thinking I really need to really back up. In 1949 when I was only 9 years old my Auntie Lou gave me "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder for Christmas. Now I will be the first to admit that I wasn't then nor now a 'big' reader. I read a little something most days but I'm far from a book worm.

When I was a kid I had way too many things racing thru my head. I don't think I was inside from sun up till sun down. But I fell in love with this little girl named "Laura" and I wished that I could have lived when she did, it sounded like so much fun(at that time). And my grandmother told me about similar stories that she and her mother went thru coming west.

Every year for the next 5 years I got a book from my Auntie Lou in the "Little House" series. THEN I got in my head that I'd rather have clothes then books! So I don't have the complete set of first editions! But I have most of them:)

Then came a long a little niece named Nikki, who's Mother(my sister) bought her a set when she was a little girl and she fell in love with them too. She and I have talked about Laura and the Little Houses for years. Several years ago we decided "someday" we were going to go visit all the places. Now I have been to a couple, one with my husband but it was pouring down rain and the other on the last trip I ever took my Mother on. She just loved it and I nearly had to drag her out of the museum in Missouri.

So this last year we(Nikki & I decided) we really better go if were going. Time marches on and who knows what the future holds. So save and save we did. We opened our own Credit Union Account and by saving all the little extras AND Uncle Brownie renting us a car(I think he thought we were going to wreck his) we made our plans and off we Went!

We had had a very busy couple of weeks, trying to plan this trip, get clothes gathered up, plans made, graduations to attend and stay RESTED! But we made it. And on Memorial Day off me and UB took off for the Airport to meet Buttercup :) And there she was just dragging herself down the airport walk yapping on the phone ~

After some confusion about which car we had rented and for how much we got a great Ford Escape! It was perfect for what we needed. Seats laid down and all our stuff packed in neat as a pin ... and you KNOW it stayed that way:) There also was this little matter of two keys given us that were welded together. We wondered later, just how that would have helped us.

It was hot VERY HOT but we said our goodbyes and headed out of town. Since it was already almost evening we stopped fairly soon cuz Buttercup had not really eaten and she needed her strength since she was going to have to do all the driving :( She didn't mind.

We got to the Ky border about dark and found a nice place to stay in Oak Grove(which isn't easy if you know anything about Oak grove)

Of course as we are unloading to get organized Buttercup notices this strange sweet smell and feel to her cosmetic bag. Someone forgot to screw on the shampoo lid..heheheheh.. Actually it got everything very clean and nothing was TOO badly damaged.



We were RUDELY awakened at 8 ish by a leaf blower! Actually it was earlier then that but I think that was as long as we could stand it. Some poor mother trying to get her baby back to sleep came out and screamed at them and they decided it was a tad early to be doing that in front of a motel!

Here we our, Our very own Self Portrait Buttercup and Daisy. Daisy, you will notice IS dressed for the heat!

We wanted to get a photo of every state we entered but we went whizzing by KY or it was dark, not sure which.

Illinois was very beautiful, what we saw of it but we were not there but I think about 2 hours. This is where we started seeing ROADKILL! Now Roadkill has never been humorous but after 16 days or so of it and trying to spot the most unusual and bizarre things it became hysterical. So we started keeping track of them(or Buttercup did in her blog) We also counted other things besides license plates but we won't go in to that :)

But what we started to see in Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri was TURTLES~! yes you read that right. Remember this was the end of May the first of June and they were just in the recovery stages of the Mississippi River flooding and all the waterways surrounding it. So I'm guessing that the turtles got washed up or perhaps they were running for higher ground! Whichever, they didn't make it :( I think we saw one live one there and a big snapping turtle somewhere else.

And then we approached St. Louis.... ahhhh St. Louis, with the Arch ya know.

I think this is the first picture of the Arch a long with the string of construction that incorporates EVERY town, city, villa, hamlet, etc in the USA!



For some reason Dick(our GPS) could not seem to get the streets right and kept trying to send us back to Illinois~ Now we really liked Illinois but that was not our designation. But no matter HOW many times we punched in Vinton Iowa it would send us back to Illinois! And that was the "Bridge of Contruction!" Finally I looked at a real live map and we escaped!

St. Louis has some cool old cobblestone streets, in parts if the city I'd never visited before!

Ahhhhhhhh yes I think this was one of the final views of the historic Archway to the West that we saw! Somewhere in the bowels of St. Louis :)

The rest of the day was filled with beautiful scenery and roadkill turtles! But we found the most lovely little town that some day I'd like to go back to visit! Hannibal Missouri! Home of Samuel Clemons as a boy and where his "Mark Twain" stories were set.

We had a terrible time finding a motel in that town but we did finally and all was well. Buttercup didn't want to stay near the noise of the interstate so we toured Hannibal several times before we decided on............. you guessed it a motel near the interstate! I am not a Bed and Breakfast person and Buttercup didn't get a say in this so,,,,,,,,,, Good Dinner and off to bed!