Some interesting facts about Missouri: it borders eight different states - Iowa in the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee in the east across the Mississippi River, Arkansas on the south side, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska across the Missouri River in the west. Only Tennessee has that many borders with other states. The two large rivers are the Missouri River, which flows through the state west to east, and the Mississippi, the 4th longest river in the world and the eastern boundary of Missouri. Just for completeness: state capital is Jefferson City, (named after Thomas Jefferson and only the 15th largest city in Missouri).
On my photo hunt for the state sign I came by another sign that immediately caught my attention: Aldi! I did not know that they have Aldi in the Mid-West. I restocked my water supply and was pleased that they had established the same system than in Germany, which requires you to have a quarter for the shopping card and prevents the shoppings cards from being left on the parking lots like we see this all the time where we live. I'm wondering whether Aldi in Virginia does the same. Ingrid can certainly tell me!
Missouri is also Tornado country.
Those ~ 500 km to St. Louis, I travelled mainly on Hwy US-50, the "loneliest road in America".
Fuel is particularly cheap in this part of the country. For diesel (some gas stations use the black handles for diesel, while the green handle dispenses gasoline!) prices can get as low as $3.24/gallon, which compares to 0.67 Euro/l. Gasoline is even cheaper.
To get a change from loneliness, I stopped at an Indian store along the route. The 81-years old owner of the store had lived part of his life in Eureka (CA), 5.5 hours north of where we live. He complained about his doctor who told him to lose weight but did not share the secrete with him of how to do this. Apparently, the doctor does not know either. He is bigger than his patient. ...
Driving through Missouri reminded me of Germany, with its brown or black and white cows and mixed forests. Germany however, does not have any signs along the highways addressing abortion.
More to come.
Why would you tell an 81 year old to change anything in his life? He has already gotten to 80 plus, what else would he want from life ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt depends. I would say it's never to late to change something, if one really wants to and sees the benefits. :-)
ReplyDeleteSame procedure at the ALDI stores in Virginia :-)
ReplyDeleteMarkus and I are in the Blue Ridge Mountains for the weekend. The lowest gas price we saw was 2.77 $. Coincidentally was this the gas station where we decided to feed our pony ;-) Such gas prices are still unbelivable for Germans!