Day 1- St. Louis, MO

430 am sure comes early but it comes much easier when you live with the best sister and brother in law and you walk into the kitchen to sausage and eggs cooking! Lis and Joel got up and made us a great breakfast to send us off. We hit the road about 30 minutes late due to the breakfast but it did not matter, this is a long trip we need a good breakfast. We did head out in the rain which we were a little concerned about since our activities would be outside for the day. I begain driving and made it as far as Indianapolis and I could no longer hold my eyes open so Billy took over and I slept till MO. The Arch is pretty amazing, I was more entriguied then I had expected to be. It is so large. Had I known before hand that you went to the top in these 4ft tall pods that were 4ft wide and held 5 people, and were completely enclosed for 4 minutes to the top, I may have changed my mind. I am glad I couldn't because the ticket was already purchased because the top was pretty amazing. You could feel the sway of the structure while you were looking down at the city below. For the $10 ticket you also had a museum of Westward Expansion to explore and there were many interesting fact about the journey West.
After the Arch we headed to the Anheuser Busch Brewery. It was a cool place. The tour was very extensive and family friendly (you wouldn't think so for a brewery but it was true). We were able to see the Clydesdale horses, that are bread on a farm specifically for Anheuser Busch. The stables these horses live in is problably cleaner then many of your houses (j/k)! The floors are spotless! You cannot even smell a horse when you walk in. The buildings of the brewery are spread across many blocks and it is a very neighborhood feel. The architecture was intriguing to Billy.
For the night we were debating as wether to stay in the campground (Graham Cave State Park) or head further into Kansas to have a shorter drive the following day. The decision came after Billy insisted we drive through the campground and check it out. It satisfied him, even though the cave was no larger then a two car garage, so we set up shop. This however proved to be a mistake. After checking the weather status with Lis over the phone it was established that the thunder we were hearing would pass quickly and we would be dry for the rest of the evening. It began to rain while we were trying to cook dinner over the fire, this lead to cooking on the Coleman stove using cut cans as foil (since we forgot foil and a pot). After dinner was cooked the rain stopped, we popped in a movie and went to sleep. We woke up about 1:30am to what I thought was a tornado ripping our tent apart! The most violent storm ever was tearing through MO. We ran to the car, I know when Billy is scared it is bad because he is never concerned, and drove to the bathhouse since it was made of cement blocks to protect from the terror. Poor Lis (who had to work the next day) and Joel were on the phone with us throughout checking out the radar and helping us figure out our next move... run away and hit the Days Inn up the road or tough it out, we mistakenly picked the latter. After a night of sleeping in the car we woke to find an inch and a half of water in the tent, had to take the tent down in the rain, and spend the next 13 hours, IN THE CAR.
Wow what a first day.