the great american road trip take 3 - owensboro to st. louis

Rico and I ate fried chicken in Kentucky last night - we had to - it just seemed like the right thing to do. Of course, we pulled into the hotel late, it was from a chain (Zaxby's) and it was dipped in so much butter that we probably took a few months off of our lives. Then again, road-tripping like this has probably done the same thing.

We left Owensboro, Kentucky and made for St. Louis again. We had promised a stop at the City Museum. Yoda Nika's godfather, Bob told us about it, and her godsister told Punk that it was "the coolest thing he'd ever do." So of course, it was all we heard about from the minute we set off.

Alison knows her stuff. This place is like a giant, hand-sculpted, fully recycled, super-dangerous, how-the-hell-did-they-get-insurance, Chuck-E-Cheese. There were climbing tubes in the ceiling (with lead pipes right at forehead level), a 10-story-slide with nothing but a rickety fire escape to get you up all 10-stories, tunnels that led to god-knows-where and wire contraptions hanging over the balconies so you can climb down three floors if you feel like it - or simply slide your leg right through and FALL down three floors if you feel like it.

The museum is the work of an artist who purchased a warehouse, and used nearly 100% recycled materials to create the world's coolest jungle gym. The wristband says "use common sense - City Museum takes no responsibility for injuries you may incur." No kidding. Punk took a lead pipe to the head, Yoda fell through a hole under a tree (and I mean Riki-Tiki-Tembo fell - she was IN the hole - thank god there was a way out and she found it), Kooka flat out refused to go down some of the slides, but had no trouble scaling up a three story slinky.

Having said all of that - we hated to leave. It was the world's largest playground, and there simply isn't enough time to write about it tonight - but you really should check it out.