Did you know how flat Illinois is?  And did you know that with all this flatness, they decided to grow soybeans? And did you know that nobody in that state knows how to use cruise control?

So I made it down to the Lou about the time that the rest of the group was already at the Arch.  Ducky, Coffey, and Ed all went up to the top to see if they ran from one side to the other if they could make it move (answer: it looked pretty stable to me on the ground.)  As I was crossing the river in my car to make it to the arch, I got stuck in a traffic jam on the bridge.  This allowed me to feel how wobbly a bridge actually is, and to see Travis waving at the bottom of the Arch.  Kid Funk doesn’t believe me that I could see him, but trust me, Travis is visible from some distance away.

Howdy, y'all

So I got to meet up with everyone that I’ve only been talking to online for a year.  This is the fun part where you get to compare what you have in your head to what people are really like.  Travis was much more soft spoken than I thought, and about as much fun as you’d expect.  The Missus is perfect for Travis, which is a nice way of saying…well you’ve read his blog right? She can deal with that.  Kid Funk aka Kinman aka Popped Collar (not really, just to the hotel desk clerk) is the guy you want to go drinkin with.

Coffey, The Missus, and Travis play with fish

I started calling Coffey “Blue” because he was like Blue from Old School in our group.  Ex-Navy and rollin out with the crew, he had a joke for everything.  Ed was unfortunately tasked with wearing a Duke hat all weekend, and probably put out the best running tweet of our conversations at lunch.  At that point, I was laughing my ass off from what people were saying, and then even more reading what Ed was writing about us as it was going on.

Ducky was trying to remain incognito on the internet, but unfortunately we have pictures of her, so that is out the window.  I also have a video of her telling a southern fried joke, but I’m still deciding on posting that.  ”I called him Precious.” I require bribes and or threats to either post it or not.  Ready, go!

"Um, I'm a duck, shut up."

Anywhatsits, between being the only people in the restaurant (and being glad because our discussion was probably much too loud and borderline), buying liquor at a mall, drinking in the pool with the cast of Jersey Shore (no, not really, but they were probably auditioning for “Jersey Shore: Arkansas” next month), and hanging out at Leclede’s Landing (I hope I spelled that right) it was a hell of a weekend.

I drove about 800 miles on this trip without incident.  The last block before home? Speeding ticket.  The policeman actually felt sorry for me.  Didn’t stop him from writing the ticket though.

Someone needs to start planning “TAR 2: Electric Boogaloo” soon.