It has been a great Effing day. We spent the night at the Econolodge in Effingham Ilinois. We chose this hotel for the free hot breakfast. Oddly enough at our free breakfast there was no effing ham, as a matter of fact there was no effing meat at all. We ate biscuits and gravy and waffles. at least the price was right.
We were so excited last night we could barely sleep we were a mere 82 miles from the worlds largest bottle of catsup. So now after much anticipation we are off to see the catsup.
This is the worlds largest catsup bottle it was completed in October 1949. It is a water tower in Collinsville, Illinois. It had to be built to hold the water for the fire suppression system that was added to the condiment factory. Since they had to add the tower the then owner of Brooks Brothers thought is would be great advertising to have the water tower in the shape of a catsup bottle. Production of condiments stopped in 1960 and moved to Indiana at that time this site became a warehouse until 1993 when the company decided to sell the property. With the hard work of many locals they been able to procure and raise money for the restoration and upkeep of this now unique roadside attraction and preserve a little of the towns historic place in history as one of the great condiment manufacturers. The water tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. This water tower holds 100,000 gallons of water and stands 170 ft. tall.
There she stands just a few more minutes according to sassy our approximate arrival is in seven minutes. Oh the beauty of it the Gateway to the West standing proud at 630 ft. tall can't wait to go up top and see everything. We will look at two states while up top Illinois and Missouri.
OK so it took a lot longer than seven minutes to arrive.
Thanks to all of the construction going on in St. Louis this stop took a lot longer than anticipated. We ended up having to give sassy pants (our GPS) a Xanax to calm her from all of the recalculating she had to do in downtown. Every single road to the arch is closed, we ended up parking several blocks away and wondering our way towards the arch. Thank you once again St. Louis for choosing to also to do construction on all of the sidewalks leading to the arch simultaneously with your road construction. While it started out just Kevin and I we ended up with an entourage of people. We were the clueless tour company. We would reach another dead end and we would all turn around and head another direction. We finally ended up at the old courthouse which is now your ticket center for the arch.
The above picture was taken at the top of the steps of the courthouse.
While waiting in line to get our tickets they were kind enough to show us a slide show on the reason all of this construction is occurring. This is the 50th anniversary of the arch and they have decided to make a beautiful courtyard and park area all the way around the arch for festivals and vendors to setup. When completed it will be beautiful. So we will forgive them for the chaos trying to get our tickets. We now have tickets in hand and we are headed to the arch.
He we are in the pod. You start 50 ft. below ground and end up 630 ft. in the air.
At the top of the arch. Worth the wait.
(Green Screen Pics) I am a sucker for them
Now we are at the giant Vess Soda bottle!
Vess Soda is a brand of soft drink manufactured and distributed primarily in the St. Louis. The company was founded in 1916 and at one point had bottling plants in several locations including Cincinnati. The giant Vess bottle stands at 35.5 ft tall and 6 ft 7 in wide and was lit by 600 lineal ft. of neon tubing in 1953 when it was originally erected it was the largest revolving lighted bottle in the world. It was moved to its current location on O'Fallen street in 1989.
Ted Drewes Custard
This is us getting ready to eat a famous custard from drewes called the concrete.
Kevin got the Reeses peanut butter one and I got the chocolate chip. Yummy!
Ted Drewes opened the Route 66 location in 1941 and quickly became a St. Louis and tourist tradition. It has been featured on a few different food and history shows.
Now it is time to get some pavement behind us and head out to Cuba, MO
This is where we will be staying tonight the historic Wagon Wheel Motel. It is the oldest continuously operating motel on route 66. It has been in operation since 1930.
The famous neon sign was not added until 1947.
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