tedwords

"The best view comes after the hardest climb." —Vanessa Gendoma

After a truly lovely breakfast at the Glidden House, we headed out for what was going to be our longest drive for the trip. We were headed from Ohio to Missouri, and specifically Kansas City, to visit Corb's cousin Shelly.

Corb woke up relatively early, but he had been having some stomach issues at four in the morning. We think it is related to the Ozempic-like medication he is taking. He has lost 14 pounds in a short period of time, but he isn't going to the bathroom as much as he should be (literally doesn't shit for four days at a time). He took a laxative the night before and it had its effect at four in the morning. So, by 6:30 he was ready to take on the day.

So, at around nine, we were ready for our ten hour drive. With a few stops along the way. First off, we found the world's lumpiest candle store in Centerville, Indiana, which we thought it would be fun to stop at, in our quest to visit some of the "world's largest." It was quaint.

BUT THEN! As we were traveling through Illinois, we saw on the road promotions for a whole slew of world's largest, in the little town of Casey, and just had to stop. There was a lot of big stuff going on!

As we were buying some fudge in the store that contained the world's largest clogs, we asked how this "world's largest" angle had impacted tourism, because it was fairly quiet the day that we went. "Really well," she replied. "This is just the quiet season. But during the warmer months, May through October, we get thousands of people each weekend. It's really crazy."

Well, good on you, Casey, Illinois. After enjoying our fudge and taking a few more photos (we had these two women who kept following us everywhere for a while, taking the same photos), we started back on the road.

By eight at night, we were in our third hour of driving down I-70 in Missouri, I kid you not. Boy that highway is long, and mostly long 16 wheelers. Corb was making good time of things, however, staying in the left lane and maintaining a steady 70 mile an hour clip. We decided to stop for a bit to eat at a pretty college town, Columbia, and have dinner. Unfortunately, our GPS led us to not the upscale restaurant I had selected but a college hangout of a similar name. I ordered fish tacos, Corb had a big hamburger.

Two hours later, at ten at night, we were at our destination, the truly lovely Oak Street Mansion, an "art hotel" with beautiful rooms and amazing prices. Of course, we didn't know that at the time. We only knew that we were at a our location, and despite being "contact free," the grumpy dude standing in the dark in front of us couldn't figure out what his passcode was and was calling the caretakers loudly asking for help. We just slipped past him and headed into our room...

..and settled in for the night. And at two in the morning, after only two hours of sleep after a long ass day, I felt Corb's finger poking me on back to wake me up.

"Ted," he said. "I don't think I feel very good..."

Next episode: our fun little road trip takes a turn for the worse.