Northward

Friday was the girls' last day of art camp. They had a very good experience with this camp and have given it an unqualified endorsement, as have I. I'm glad we tried it.

The next adventure began right away: a week in Michigan with my husband's family. The first step was driving there. I picked up the kids and set my sights on Chicago--pretty much the half-way point between St. Louis and northern Michigan.  It's a 5-6 hour drive, doable with an afternoon departure.

Traffic was terrible but I didn't mind. I would have normally, but I happened to be stuck in mostly not moving traffic right in front of what is probably my favorite view of the city. The interchange between highways 44, 55, and 70 is a place that you'll never really look at properly in optimal travel conditions. You zip through so fast that you can hardly appreciate it, much less take a picture. But traffic was terrible, stop and go but mostly stop.  All those stops were great opportunities to pull out my camera and I got a few good pictures.  Now I can show people a little bit of St. Louis from my favorite vantage point.

There's a huge controversy around that mural-sized sign that reads "Stop Eminent Domain Abuse". The guy who painted it owns that building and several others and, well, he has a bone to pick with the city of St. Louis. Here's an article about it.

Directly after that interchange, the path northward takes you across the Mississippi river into Illinois, Chicago bound.

This is what the highway sign looks like:

The picture shows highway 70 West continuing northward. Exits for downtown are also ahead just a little way. But first, everyone one who wants to continue their journey on highways 64 East, 55 North, 70 East -- All of them will have to squeeze down to one single lane.

Who thought that was a good idea?

That little bit of bad design causes traffic to back up at probably every hour of the day.  On bad days it backs up all the way to the 44/70 interchange.  So it's that little bit of bad design which enabled me to take photos of my favorite view of downtown. I guess I shouldn't complain.  It really made my day to be able to take pictures at my favorite spot.