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8

So the next day, Sunday, we embarked upon our trip. The weather was beautiful again but hot. As I search my memory, I don't recall ever having been as far west before as we went that day, when we cruised through to St. Louis. I think Chicago had been the limit of my westward travel prior to that. So, in a way, it was an exploration into new lands for me. Willie had been ^[[to]] Yellowstone and Mother to San Francisco by ship around the Horn when she was a girl as well as to visit Stella Talmadge in Seattle more recently. So I was the neophyte and I can recall yet what a thrill I got out of it. On second thought, I believe Mother had visited Seattle in 1895 when she had her unhappy love affair before meeting my father. The Indiana and Illinois country we traversed was rolling and not unusual and full of sycamore blight as a result of the previous year's drought. Sycamores are very dirty trees but it was still sad to see them thus afflicted; in fact, at the time, I thought them very beautiful trees with their mottled bark, not having had any intimate contact with them as I have since. We lunched at Vincennes at the Saint Anne Tea Room where we got what I considered a real rooking-- "35¢ for a salad worth 5¢ at the outside" according to my diary. In spite of my thrill at crossing the Mississippi into new territory, the river itself was a disappointment to me because it was so narrow--I'd expected something like the Amazon I guess that you could barely see across. We covered 281 miles that day, virtually nothing by today's thruway standards but quite different when traversing rough macadem roads or even gravel sometimes, and in the intense heat. Willie was played out when we reached St. Louis and put up at the Hotel Jefferson where I was to stop many times in later years on trips to St. Louis Car Co., Busch-Sulzer, and others. In fact, Willie felt so badly that she didn't even want to eat and I was afraid for awhile that we'd have to return to Louisville. But after a good rest, she felt better. However, there were some dark and worrisome hours in the evening. One thing which amazed us about St. Louis was that it had no traffic system--everybody for himself, no traffic signals, no traffic cops except maybe at the busiest corners downtown, but on Sunday this way, none at all! My expense record for that day says "Meals--$5.15" which I assume is for Willie and me although it may have included Mother; however, I'm assuming the figures shown are for Willie and me because I'm sure Mother was paying her own way. Gasoline was 15¢ again. Our room at the very excellent Jefferson Hotel was $4.50 with an additional 75¢for Dodgem's garage--and as I recall, this was garage storage and not a parking lot.

The next day, Monday, June 15th, we headed westward again and this time there was no question we were in a strange land as far as I was concerned. It intrigued me very much. Somehow, I could seem to feel the spirit of the pioneers in their prairie schooners pushing west as we headed across Missouri. And