A lot of shit was kind of almost today.

Like I went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and I took the bus tour that goes around the track. Only it didn’t, because they are still resurfacing.

It was OK, though. Just me, the bus driver and the tour description on the tape deck. The driver was a friendly old guy, and we talked a bit about Fenway.

He was sorry he didn’t get to see it when he visited Boston, and he hopes it never gets torn down to make way for a new stadium. We agreed on that, and I guess when you are in the middle of a big track built in 1909, it makes sense.

Later, I detoured to see where Abe Lincoln’s famous, boyhood, Illinois log cabin was. There’s a new log cabin there (Well, not “new.” I think it was built in the ’20s or ’30s.) It turns out the original was moved around for some state expos and whatnot, and then went missing. How the fuck do you lose a house?

(Coolest, yet spooky road moment — As I was leaving Abe’s family farm, I had my iPod on shuffle. The song that came up as I pulled from my parking space, “Abie Baby” from the soundtrack to “Hair.” (Yeah, I fucking know. I like showtunes.))

Then, I figured I’d try to get a bite to eat in St. Louis, since a lot of barbecue places back in the Northeast seem to have St. Louis-style choices. But, I could not for the life of me find a place that looked tourist safe enough to park my loaded car AND had restaurants.

Seriously, I saw only four restaurants at all in that city and two of them were goddamn Irish pubs (or facsimiles) with names like Maggie O’McHarp’s. Fucking hell, not what I’d be looking for out here.

I looked for my usual city scene to spot the high-rent district and good, if not over-priced eats, name-brand hotels, twinkly lights in the tree and horse-drawn cabs. What I think of as the Newbury St./Back Bay look. I saw the horsies and a few lights, but no fucking food.

Although one almost thing that didn’t happen in St. Louis I’m happy about. I didn’t run out of gas while lost along the Missippi hard by the Illinois strip joints and adult bookstores.

I got detoured around a closed bridge, deeply lost and the one gas station I found had handwritten notes on the pumps, “No Gas.” I seriously considered stopping at a “gentleman’s club” for directions, but I made it out of the detour and into a Shell Station.

Never did get any dinner. (The plus side of no meal is that there is no plus side. Apparently, M. doesn’t want me to gain a couple of hundred lbs. on a road diet. Bwahaa.)

I almost made it to Springfield, MO but bailed when the trucks were making me too jumpy, and I realized I was a bit confused by crossing a time zone earlier in the day. I type this from a Drury Inn, which advertises free high-speed Internet, in some fucking place called Rolla.