If you are in a family where the Dad builds roads and bridges for a living, going for a ride is a whole lot different than it is for most families.
For one, Dad would slow to a crawl anytime he passed another contractor’s job so he could see what techniques the guy was using. If his competitor had some kind of new, spiffy piece of equipment, he’s say, “I wish I had his and he had a better one.”
We couldn’t make a trip from Cape to St. Louis without him pointing this area out as “one of the biggest rock cuts on I-55 in Missouri.”
By the time I got to St. Louis on February 25, those clouds were dropping snow from the sky. After I finished my exhibit in Ohio and drove back to Cape from St. Louis on March 1, more clouds were causing snow to swirl across the road.
What IS it with snow this year? It seems like everyplace I’ve gone lately has had snow. I’m afraid to go back to Florida next week for fear I’m going to cause it to snow on Wife Lila’s new vegetable gardens.
The ride to St. Louis is a good ride…when I was a kid I thought it was dull, but now I appreciate it a lot more. The rolling hills and then almost mountains as you go north from Cape and the view of the little river to the south of the hill at Bloomsdale always put a smile on my face!
My Dad was in the sign business, so we were always looking at the signs along the highway a with dad fussing about and upside down “S” or two on billboards.
Nice ride…
Here is a Frony photo of the first concrete poured on the Cape Girardeau section of Interstate 55 in 1962.
http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/flynch/entry/35888
I remember the face of the cut being real smooth. Now that it has weathered, it has character. When I reach this cut, I know I’m almost to St. Louis.