Enter Missouri

We headed towards St. Louis, where Nando had lived before to meet an old friend and perhaps visit with a cousin of mine. We stopped and looked at the dirty Mississippi river, crossed the bridge and entered into St. Louis. I tried to imagine Louis and Clarke setting forward on their expedition to the West, I tried to imagine natives using the water and if it ever looked clean. So much industry must have used this river and now it looks exhausted and like mud oil.

We entered into St., Louis with moderate traffic as in any city, the buildings were old, made of brick and looked impoverished, as most of America thus far.

Mississippi River

Big Bark

Bridge into St. Louis

We were looking for some tubing or fuel line, Nando thinks that the fuel line for the WVO is too small, so we called around and found a place, that then referred us to another place. We got another fuel line, a quarter or an inch bigger,installed it but still had the same problem. But it was too late to go back so we ate at Nando's favorite fast food place in St. Louis, which was Crazy Bowls and Wraps, they served quinoa stir fry and brown rice wraps with organic free range chicken or fish and of course it wouldn't really be American if they didn't offer a Coke to drink with your non-gluten ginger stir fry. After Nando knew a nice place to go, where the dogs had muzzles, there were strict ordianances and even a curfew. So of course our dog ran around Forest park with no leash and we were out beyond the curfew and even decided to fill our water tank and spend the night in the park. We all took cold showers in the bus and at about 10pm we shut the lights off and hoped to get through the very hot night and leave early in the morning. At about 3A.M. I heard the clicking of a megaphone, and when I opened my eyes I saw bright lights coming through the bus windows and red flashing lights, I woke Nando, who went to the front window, returned and said with the most sullen face, it's the cops. At that point I got dressed and Nando and I went outside barefoot and in our pajamas, with white lights shown on us. As we approached the cars, it turned out to be a park security and a St. Louis cop. We explained the situation at which point the cop decided he knew where we could park for the night and escorted us to a hill in the park. We had a nice breeze and slept through the rest of the night. In the morning Luciano woke and ran outside to find we were parked at the horse stables.

We then went to meet with Nando's friend who manages a Mexican chain restaurant in St. Louis. He was also from Colombia and had been Nando's closest friend when he lived here. He promised us some WVO, but when Nando looked at it, it was much too dirty for us and full of animal fat. So his friend gave us brunch instead and off we went towards Kansas.