Day 40 - Layover Day in Marshfield and Springfield

June 28, 2002
3 min. read

This post is part of the Trans-Am series.

I had trouble sleeping through the snoring of two parents, and woke up tired. I had hoped to get some time in Springfield last night, but I arrived too late. If we pushed for Ash Grove, we could drive back into Springfield, but I wouldn’t get into there until late again. I decided to have a zero day and went to the office to pay for the second night in the room.

We headed over to the restaurant next to the motel and had a country sized breakfast. It was filling and good. I also picked up a can of opossum (road tenderized and only 20% or less of gravel, dirt and other contamination). I didn’t pick up anything major from Virginia, but I have Kentucky coal and Missouri opossum. :)

There were serious wrecks on I-44 heading into Springfield and we talked with some locals heading out of the restaurant. They told us some detailed directions for getting into town. The best part was just following some detailed directions and assuring us that it would get us into town fast he added, “I hope.” That gave us all a chuckle.

The first thing that I wanted to see was Bass Pro’s International Headquarters. This place is a sportsman’s paradise. There are way to many things to spend money on. We headed up to the mounted animals exhibit. They have many of the larger animals on North America, some serious fish and other animals from around the world. Most displays had information on the species and their past and current habitats. It was very informative, and you were able to see many animals up close that wouldn’t be possible or advisable, such as a wolverine. I filled up 3 memory cards for my digital camera and spent over an hour and a half walking through the exhibits.

Next, we headed down to the boat section. There was a 6 hp four-cycle outboard engine that was inside a water tank. It was amazingly quiet and had none of the typical two-cycle oil smoke. I’m sure it is also much more fuel efficient. I needed another pair of socks and headed over to the shoe department. I found a high priced pair of hiking socks and then we headed over to the large fish tank, for the fish feeding show. The show was very corny, but the fish were cool. There is an 80+ pound blue channel catfish in the tank that we were able to see, as well as many very large bass and other fish. The also have a 160 pound alligator snapping turtle.

We left to catch The Sum Of All Fears at the local theater. It was a decent adaptation of one of Tom Clancy’s better novels. After the movie, we headed to Lamberts. This is a fun place where rolls are distributed by being thrown at you. When the rolls come out, you hold up your hand and get read to catch. I didn’t realize that they were as soft as they were and let the first roll squish between my fingers and bounce off my glasses. Too much to describe, you just have to go there and check it out. The three locations are available on their web site, which I think is: http://throwedrolls.com/

Marshfield, IL


Part 45 of 48 in the Trans-Am series.

Series Start | Day 39 - Houston to Marshfield | Day 41 - Marshfield to Ash Grove

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