Day 8: Granite City, IL to Manhattan KS.

I broke camp in the morning after I took a quick shower. Good thing about staying at KOA are the showers I guess. I felt like I was back in the dorms. I packed up my car and made my way to St. Louis. I crossed the Mississippi and didn't even notice it. I was expecting more signage.

I parked at a garage and made my way to the Gateway Arch. My God, that thing is huge. It blew my mind. I had to got back about 200 yards just to get the entire thing in a picture. I traveled up to the top with a family of 4 from St. Louis. We got in and I made a comment about how the elevator pod was very 2001. It was by the way. It was a white circular pod which looked like an egg. I'm pretty sure I hit it on the nose. Anyways, the father looks at me and jokingly (but not really) laughs then says "Watch it, this is our city you're making fun of". So I laughed then said "Open the pod bay doors HAL". It was an awkward elevator ride after that. We got tot he top and I let some distance between us.

Once again that thing is huge. I mean I've seen plenty of pictures, but man we were really high. Looking out the windows you could see all of St. Louis. Coolest thing was you could see right into Busch Stadium. After a few minutes I got back in an elevator (this time by myself) and went back down. Took some pictures then went to find some coffee. I asked some dude where I could find some and he pointed to blocking he was standing outside of. There was a little coffee shop inside and I bought a cup. Walked around the corner then took a sip. Worst coffee ever. I felt like someone took some acorns out of a park, burnt them to a crisp, let a dog poop on them, then mixed it with used motor oil. $2 gone.

I got back to my car and drove straight to KS. Only made a stop for food and gas. It rained the entire trip through MO. I thought a tornado was going to take me away. As soon as I got to KS, though, rained stopped. KS was cool. Lots of rolling plains and 70 mph speed limit. Bitchin'. I got the Jeff's house and let myself in. His dog was going crazy so I took her for a walk.

Jeff got back from work shortly after and we went to the grocery store to by hamburger meat. Now Jeff had bought some hamburger a couple months back and had it frozen. But apparently there was an Ecoli recall for that meat so he brought it was us to return. He gave it to customer service and got his couple bucks back. We walk over to the meat to but some more hamburg and were making jokes about whether to buy the same brand. Meanwhile, so grocery store peon, walks up next to us and some hamburger on the shelf. We look over at it, it's the same hamburg Jeff just returned! He calls the guy over and tells him he just returned the meat because of the Ecoli recall. The guy says they told him it was good, even though the date on it was 6/16. Really, Dillions? Really? If I were Jeff, I'd find a new grocery store.

After dinner we went downtown to Aggieville with Jeff's friend Dante. Kansas State is right down the street from Jeff, so theres a pretty big college atmosphere here. Aggieville is like a large downtown Durham. Looks of bars and small eateries. We sit outside at a bar and start drinking our beers and talking. Dante is a straight-shooter. He'll speak his mind with care of rudeness. So we're talking and these two girls sit down and one says "I'm going to interrupt you is that alright?" and Dante says "No, that's rude. We're talking." So the girls get up in a big huff and leave. Meanwhile we're like whatever, they weren't attractive anyways. I run off to the bathroom later and walk by the girls talking about us and how we're wicked rude. I mention it to Dante and we need talk him out of reaming that out. Later he gets up to go the bathroom and the one girl gives him the finger. He goes off and starts walking on the table and arguments ensue. The basic problem here is the girl's boyfriend is a complete idiot. In his mind if a girl wants to interupt a conversion, that is her right because she is a girl, and out of common respect the guys should stop talking and let her. I'm sorry dude, but if tow people are talking and someone walks up, boy or girl, its rude to interupt any conversion. Needless to say this conversion got pretty heated and I just kept calling the guy a complete idiot for what he was saying. This went on for atleast 20 minutes before we finally just left. Jeff had PT in the morning pretty early so it was a good out. Pretty good trip to the bar, thanks Jeff.