Next week I’m driving from Houston, TX to St. Charles, MO. I plan to avoid the major highways and want to go off the beaten path. If anyone knows of any interesting places to stop at, please let me know.
I’ve never gone that far north, but have taken 59/69 (whatever number it happens to be using) up to Texarkana and then 30 to Arkadelphia, where you can go north on AR Route 7. Hot Springs is just up the road, and it still has a functioning bath house, in addition to everyday touristy things. Route 7 goes through lots of little towns and winds through the mountains. If you’re used to the coastal prairie like me, the scenery can be breathtaking(and some of the curves heartstopping). There are plenty of country stores and local eateries of every description. I once happened across a “market day” in Ola(I think), and walked around looking at livestock and craftware while eating the local barbecue, and although it was pork it was delicious (when in Rome…).
interesting stuff and oddities galore
U.S. 63 has some beautiful vistas of the Ozarks. At Rolla you can get on historic U.S. 66 or go for even more scenery porn and continue to Missouri 94 and its terrifying yet gorgeous route along the Missouri River.
Of course, if you aren’t specifically interested in scenery or don’t care about historic U.S. 66, there isn’t much else to recommend that route.
Once you get there, take a drive along the Great River Road - some great scenery between Alton and Grafton. And check out the town of Alton. It’s a neat little place with some great restaurants and bars.
Highway 94 between Jefferson City, MO and St. Charles has some lovely views of the Missouri River and some nice wineries. There are also some neat little cafes and restaurants along the way that cater to bicyclists on the Katy Trail.
In Jefferson City you can visit the old Missouri State Penitentiary, which is fascinating and creepy.
In Defiance, MO, you can visit Daniel Boone’s last home.
Just before you get to St. Charles on Highway 94, you can visit a (hopefully) remediated nuclear waste dump in Weldon Spring.https://www.lm.doe.gov/weldon/
There’s lots to see on St. Charles’s Old Main Street, from antique shops to bars to the first State Capitol historic site to a Lewis and Clark historic site to a casino.
Can I ask what brings you to my neck of the woods?
Eureka Springs, AR is a neat town. A quirky, artsy, gay-friendly town in the middle of the Ozarks. And there’s a big cat sanctuary close by, which is worth a stop. Also nearby is one of the worst sculptures of Jesus you’ll ever see. It’s much like a 70 foot tall milk carton.
What Defensive Indifference and I both failed to mention is that U.S. 63 meets MO 94 at Jefferson City, which also happens to be the state capital. Not only can you see the old penitentiary, but also the Capitol itself, museums, historic sites, and all the other things you’d expect in a state capital.
kunilou, do you still live in the area? ISTR that you moved away. If you’re around, I’m thinking we need to meet up with Cumberdale and paint the town a very, very pale shade of red.
I still live in the StL area. Any others of us out there? Maybe HeyHomie?
Before setting up any meeting, I want to make it clear that I WILL NOT DRIVE ON MO 94 AT NIGHT.
I think Hey Homie is living off the grid in southern MO these days. I ran across a Doper whose location is University City a day or so ago. I can’t remember who it was now.
Whereabouts do you live? I’m in Chesterfield.
I just Googled it; it looks like a woman I know who is a Carmelite nun.
If you pass through the tourist trap known as Lake of the Ozarks and like secondhand stores, check out Bear Consignment, a for-profit resale store in an old grocery store in Camdenton.
And if you’re a vintage video game aficionado, Springfield, MO has “1984”, an arcade with period games. $7.50 gets you an evening’s unlimited play; you do have to pay separately for pinball, and they have a refreshment stand.
Around the corner is Moxie, an independent movie theater.
Ohmigod. That is too cool. I must make a pilgrimage. Tell me they have the old Star Wars game! The one where you sat down and piloted an X-wing.
Oh, oh! And Elevator Action! I loved that one for some reason.
And Spy Hunter! Do they have it???
In addition to the other attractions in Jefferson City, there is a Missouri National Guard Museum just East of town. Exhibits include some regarding Harry S Truman who was in WWI as a member.
In Fulton Missouri, a few miles north of Jefferson City is the Churchill Memorial where he gave his famous Iron Curtain speech. There’s also a church designed by Christopher Wren.
That’s a good place to stop. I saw Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech there in 1992 (America’s National Churchill Museum | Mikhail Gorbachev Lecture at the National Churchill Museum). Well, “saw” is a bit of an exaggeration, since my friends and I were waaaaay in the back. It was still cool, though.
I moved from that area in 2012, but you could contact them and ask.
On one of our trips to St Louis last year we took Hwy 50 out of Lee’s Summit and through Sedalia to Jeff City, where we got on 94 with the intent to take it all the way in to St Charles. But there was a bridge out somewhere and we wound up taking this ridiculous detour that was not very well marked, and we just said screw it and drove north until we got on I-70 and took that in like we usually do. But the drive on 94 along the river was very nice and I’d like to take that trip again on my motorcycle sometime.
In Spring and into Summer, the roads like 94 and the lettered county roads are full of sport bikes screaming down the road at high revs. They think they are at the Tourist Trophy race. It generally goes bad when they meet a combine coming the other way using a lane and a half.
Be wise.
My former neighbor wound up tangled in a barbed wire fence like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, just outside Washington MO.
Ouch! I hope they weren’t too bad hurt.