As y’all well know, I find myself rather dissatisfied with politics, culture and economics of my present location, so I’m planning a move to Indiana to be closer to the rest of the family ASAP after The Worst Day Of My Life arrives.
Day 1 - Puget Sound to Coeur d’Alene metro via I-90 - stop at an old friend’s model shop one last time and stop to see my old FFL in their new Idaho location
Day 2 - CdA to Missoula via I-90 - Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT Natural History Museum and Museum of Mountain Flying in Missoula
Day 3 - Missoula to Rapid City via I-90 and US-212 - Lincoln’s 50k Silver Dollar Bar for childhood memories, quick checkout Deadwood, Dinos of Hell Creek Museum, Black Hills Institute geology museum, South Dakota Air & Space Museum
Day 4 - Rapid City to Independence, MO via I-90, I-29, I-80 and SR-50 - SD School of Mines geology museum, Wall Drug (putting another childhood memory to bed), Mt Rushmore, Wall Drug, SAC Museum
Day 5 - Independence to Cape Girardeau via I-70 and I-55 - Nat’l Museum of Transport in St Louis
Day 6 - Cape Girardeau to Eddyville, KY via I-55, SR-77, US-62 and I-24 - road day, probably no sightseeing
Day 7 - Eddyville to Indianapolis via I-69 - ditto; family in Indianapolis
Day 8 - Indianapolis to Fort Wayne via I-69 - ditto; “settle into new home”
Default preferences for chow unless there are better locals are Perkins, Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans (all from childhood memories). Any of you guys who live near any of these stretches have suggestions to look for? I usually prefer old-school neighborhood coffee shops and diners or regionals that don’t have a West Coast presence; nothing seafood or too spicy. (I can do Qdoba’s mildest but not Chipotle’s.) I should have at least one good steak when in beef country.
Obviously places will close or open over the years between now and putting this plan into effect; the idea is regularly resample and see who stands the test of time between now and Show Time. And depending on timing I’m always up for a range meet to share some toys if anyone’s along the way, or to share my aviation, dino or RR expertise if anyone wants to meet at one of the museum stops.
Pass on the tomatoes, but… once I hit Fort Wayne it’s GOTTA be Coney Island Coney Dogs. Even though it means enduring the blight of Downtown… it’s been like 2012 since my last fix.
And then another Gotta Hit is Don Hall’s Factory - Uncle Frank used to be a regular there, insisted on buying us all at least one steak-dinner night when we were back visiting. (He was a prime rib guy but respected most of the rest of us favoring good sirloin or filet.)
Damn, that place got EXPENSIVE over a decade and change…
I live in Bozeman, MT. You will like the Museum of the Rockies. But it’s quite a haul to get here from Missoula…
So many good restaurants and cafes in town with the university and being a “tourist town” thanks to Taylor Sheridan. For breakfast/lunch food, Storm Castle Cafe, Western Cafe, Rise and Shine (my favorite for incredible bfast burritos). Revelry is good but maybe too “west coast” for you. For steak, Carlisle’s… high end and on the fancy side but all local food and rotating menu. It’s really good.
Day 3 or 4 you might also dip down to Hot Springs, SD if you want to see a bunch of mammoth skeletons in-situ. Depends on your time constraints. Hot Springs is 45 minutes south of Rapid City.
If you are hitting a museum in St. Louis already, id recommend the City Museum there as well. Words can’t describe. It’s weird but cool. Also Pappy’s and/or Salt and Smoke for BBQ. Salt and Smoke also has a great bourbon selection.
Utah, to be honest I’m only stopping in SLC for one particular locomotive. Once NYC 2933 is ticked off, it’s on around the hook.
Ned, it’s right along a highway but I don’t even get INTO Iowa with the stop in Omaha. (SAC Museum, my pilgrimage for the Church of St. LeMay.) Once I’m done at the SAC Museum it’s beeline for a Kansas City steak, STL to catch a train, hook around Illinois then up to Indianapolis.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to stop and sightsee… but certain major-metros my first instinct is AVOID, and St Louis is in that direction while not as bad as Blue State cities. So is Kansas City, frankly, and Indianapolis and Fort Wayne are only helped by my rels being in some of the quieter suburbs. (Fort Wayne, they’re actually still in farm country!) For some reason some RR guys really keep trying to push MN-WI-IL routing… kinda hard to figure out how to tell them that I’m avoiding states that won’t honor my CCW.
Followup: any really good Civil War spots along my route in MO or westernmost KY?
No battle(and probably further south than you want), but Civil War related.
Not Civil War related, and not really anything to go look at, but if you see anything named “Harpe’s Head” it is in reference to 2 brothers who were probably the first New World serial killers.
And with my luck I’m the guy who Murphy and his army of gremlins will dogpile at the worst possible time. OTOH, with Cairo Bridge (my first planned river crossing) closed indefinitely, that means I detour down to Caruthersville… no more Illannoy problem not even that little bit.
To be honest, there’s also an ulterior motive in this… I tend to work through grief by throwing myself into the immediate work to be done then process it later having a full breakdown when it’s safe to do so, and I’m thinking that when the time comes after The Worst Day Of My Life, trying to plan some meetups with friends, acquaintances and contacts along the way will help keep me focused to that next checkpoint on the way to get that prime rib in Uncle Frank’s memory at Don Hall’s Factory. THEN, once I’m safe and close to relatives who can ride herd on me, THEN I can afford the luxury of falling apart for a few days.
They really could stand to build a connector between the 57 at Sikeston/Charleston to the 27 at Paducah. Or at least to Wickliffe so you could get into Western Kentucky from Missouri without driving that long wishbone into and out of Illinois.
I haven’t been across that Cairo bridge since sometime in the early oughts, and that damn bridge should have been closed then. It was pretty sketchy.
