9-16-17  off to St. Louis:

Time to make another trip to St. Louis.  No Dr. appointments for me for a change, but Ken had a check up and it was time to get the Taurus inspected and registered again.  So the new car sat in the driveway of our apartment and we were off in the Taurus.
We elected to go down I-85 to I-285 to I-75 this time instead of heading cross country on SR 20.  If there's no accidents---and that's a big if!---Sat. usually flows pretty good that way.  Here's the normal low traffic at Spaghetti Junction (intersection of I-85 and I-285) on Sat. morning.

 One of the landmarks along I-285.

the normal "low" Sat. traffic on I-285.

 At least the sun was out today!

 When there isn't the usual terrible traffic in Chattanooga, it's a pretty ride on I-24 through Chattanooga.

 more of the Tennessee River?

 Early fall colors---lots and lots of wild Golden Rod.

 just past Chattanooga.

 I do like the ride on beautiful days like today.  Especially through the mountains of Tennessee.

 I ended up driving most of the way through Tennessee and Kentucky---so no more pictures there.  We even went straight through Nashville instead of taking the usual Briley Parkway highway around the city.
We made good time for a change----at least until we got to the perpetual road construction on I-57 in Illinois!

 Now we were in the flat farmlands.  Even they can be pretty.

 The corn and soy crops were now a pretty yellow/orange, too.

 lots of little white wild flowers, too.

 Even the clouds were pretty.

Made it to Mt. Vernon in about 8 hours.  There we met up with David and Jane and visited for a bit.  Even went back to their place after dinner for a couple hours.  Glad we did.  It ended up being the only time we saw them this trip.
Got into St. Louis about 10.  Just in time to turn on the TV and watch the new protests going on in St. Louis.  Yesterday another not guilty verdict for a white policeman shooting a black thug came down.  I almost didn't come back this trip.  I believe in peaceful protests, but I don't think that includes looting, damaging property, and blocking highways!  They like to run around chanting, "No justice, no peace" or "No justice, No baseball" or "No justice, no profit" ... .  2 1/2 weeks later, they're still out there protesting every day.  At least they don't seem to be looting anymore, but the police aren't putting up with a lot of the crap that went on in Ferguson.  As of yesterday, there have been over 300 arrests.  Of course the police are being criticized for cracking down on them.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to have a good time there with all the protesting going on, but we were able to avoid it all but one day and have a good time visiting with family and friends for 2 weeks.