Yesterday I drove to St. Louis, from Lexington. This time I squeezed the 5 hour trip into 11 hours. 🙂 I made a number of stops along the way, but only about 4 of them were GeoCaching stops.

I drove most of the way with the top down, but arount Marengo the wind picked up and I had to put the doors back on just to keep my glasses from blowing off. The wind was from the south, and really strong and gusty. My glasses blew off once, and I caught them!

Then, about 20 miles east of St. Louis, it got rather chilly and cloudy, and I stopped to put the rest of the roof on. I think I got a bit of a farmer’s ran out of it. At least I’m a little burned. But it was a lot of fun. I don’t think anything important blew away. Although I did notice a few things flick out of the back, in the rear-view, I don’t seem to be missing anything.

I stopped at the Huber Winery near Starlight, IN. I have to say that I’m not particularly impressed. They have a huge operation, and grow all their own grapes. But the people that work there don’t know anything about the products, everything was tasted at the wrong temperature, and none of them were particularly good. I did get a bottle of port, in the hopes that, at a better temperature, it will be better, but I suspect that this was a mistake.

I stopped two places in Louisville to look for caches. Found two. Couldn’t find another one without making myself *really* obvious, so I’ll leave it for another time. At the second stop, Mysterious Norseman, there was a rugby game going, and I almost stopped to watch, but then decided I should keep going.

I stopped at a graveyard near (I think) Marengo, but was not able to find the cache there.

And I stoped at the Ooloitic Limestone Cache, on some highway exit, where I clambered up cliffs to find a BITW cache (Box In The Woods), and get rather scratched up with thorns. My right wrist looks like I tried to end it all up there.

I found Creve Coeur much more easily this time. I suppose that pretty soon I’ll be able to come here without even having to consult a map for the last 10 miles. I certainly hope that this training opportunity develops into a regular thing, although being away from home for a week is a bit of a trial.

Right now, I need to get some breakfast and get across the street to the training facility so that I can set up.