Missouri loves company

Springfield, Missouri — 4567.0 miles

They say "Nature always bats last," which is probably an understatement; Nature can appear anywhere in the order, including cleanup. Certainly the current route of the Missisippi River indicates top-of-the-order hitting: the most expedient way out of southern Illinois today was to cross the Ohio into Kentucky, thread through three counties, jump back over the Ohio into Illinois again, and only then cross the Mississippi.

Eventually this put me into Sikeston, Missouri, which is interesting because US 60, 61 and 62 all intersect there, but also because they have an eatery where the rolls are literally thrown at you. Fortunately, I have a large strike zone.

US 60 thereafter alternates between drab and dandy, and I must thank the young ladies in the black Cutlass Supreme convertible somewhere near Cabool for providing cross-lane entertainment, even if that wasn't their intention. (Four girls on a road trip? This is the stuff of Cinemax at half past midnight.)

Springfield, Missouri, of course, is nothing like The Simpsons' Springfield. For one thing, nobody boasts about the wonders of Capital Jefferson City. And, at a population around 150,000, it's probably too big. But it has its charms: I picked up on a Fargo-esque vibe, a sort of surprise that the town has grown as much as it has. It helps, I think, not to remind yourself that Branson is half an hour away.

More relevant to my existence, as it happens, is the fact that Springfield is the home base for John Q. Hammons, a leading builder of upscale hotels who is developing properties in my neck of the woods. (John Q. owns the Renaissance hotels in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and the Courtyard by Marriott in Oklahoma City; he has a Residence Inn and an Embassy Suites planned for near Bricktown.) None of these is likely to cater to the budget traveler, so I decided to check into his Holiday Inn Express (one of five John Q. hotels in Springfield) to see what he offers at a (barely) sub-$100 price point. Quite a lot, as it turns out; this is a new property, and like the best hotels, how it looks outside is good enough but how it looks inside is marvelous. And in the drawer next to the Yellow Pages, where you might expect Gideon to have left a Bible, you'll find a 2002 biography of John Q., which might be overdoing it a tad. Still, the staff speak of him with reverence, so I wonder how they're taking the merger of Hammons Hotels with an investor group.

Tomorrow wraps it up.

Posted at 5:00 PM to World Tour '05