Skyline Chili
March 27, 2026 — Day 3
Cracker Barrel, Springfield, OH — Cracker Barrel, Fenton, MO
One of the first things we do in the morning is enter all the stops into the GPS. Paul usually does this, we find gas, if needed, and put 2 destinations in. Today we were going to make it to Fenton MO for certain, but we also add a reach destination in case we are feeling good about the travel. We’re not fond of pushing, but on this trip, pushing means there’s a payoff at the other end of this trip. We have gained enough time to spend a couple of days in the Painted Desert. We hadn’t planned on it but it dawned on us that if we keep this pace up it would be possible to do that and another thing. So, that’s some of our planned fun to use up the days we’ve been doing “beast mode”. We’ve mentioned this before: Cracker Barrels are easy off and easy on. We don’t unhook. And we always leave early.
Back to the day’s events. Paul was busy putting in latitude and longitudes in the GPS. Why lat/long? We learned early on that street addresses sometimes take you to the wrong spot. Super inconvenient when you’re driving something that doesn’t bang a uey easily. Susan asked, “Lunch at Skyline?” Paul had given up on that since we couldn’t make Cincinnati, but Susan found one on the route! Paul got a big smile on his face. (Paul here, she’s great, isn’t she?)
This was a real wide load.
Ohio knows how to put out a welcome sign and a great “come back soon” sign! In case you think, “Well, that’s a lame goodbye sign.” Oh, no it’s not. It’s most awesome. See, that arch is part of the goodbye sign. Its sole purpose is to hang the sign on (there was a welcome sign going in the other direction).
Remember the hard rains from last night? The forecast was for 1-2″ inches” of rain. We passed countless rivers and small streams overflowing their banks.
But first we have to get where we’re going. I-70 is a nightmare. It’s bumpy beyond belief. There are miles of construction, they place the jersey barriers right next to you in the left lane and the right lane has about a foot of “shoulder” and then it drops off. Susan drove about an hour and declared her time behind the wheel was just too stressful to do more of it.
(susan here: that was one of the white-knuckliest of white knuckle drives I’ve ever done. The other one, which Paul did, was in a construction zone in Arkansas.)
We pulled off to do an off/on ramp driver change. We’re getting pretty fast at that. We looked at the map. Route 40 parallels I-70. Sure it runs through small towns but anything is better than I-70 so state route 40 it was! There were a delightful series of small towns.
These small towns have one house in obvious desperate poverty right next door to some fancy homes. Some towns are vibrant and full of stores and murals and others not so much.
In between is rolling farmland.
When you’re not in one of these little towns the speed limit is 60mph. It’s generally 30-35 through downtown. It was punishing at 50mph back on I-70. We’d made the right choice.
Remember that wide load? Route 40 was full of wide loads, it seemed odd at first. Then we realized that they’d be a rolling roadblock in the construction zones. And, if the truck broke down? Then I-70 would be closed. They must have all been detoured to Route 40.
Keene has a great old theater also. They just replaced the marquee with a digital sign. It is tasteful and looks good. They needed permission from the city to do it, since those signs are forbidden downtown, or maybe in all of Keene. The exception was made because it is actually dangerous and expensive to maintain the sign. You need to block off the sidewalk, use very tall ladders, and the letters are fragile and getting hard to find when they break. You can see above the various colors of red. So, it is sad to see it gone but it was necessary.
The last half a dozen miles before lunch was heavy suburban sprawl traffic with the added twist of more road construction. Yuck! But we made it!!
You heard the story yesterday so we won’t repeat it. Susan wasn’t looking forward to the place. You see, she doesn’t eat beef and the Skyline Chili is a one trick pony. Oh, there are other things, but they all seem to be based on the same beef chili sauce. She was quite pleased to find they have a chicken chili now! Paul also had some mild trepidation. You see on the surface Cincinnati chili doesn’t sound all that appetizing. Chili with cinnamon? But he’s drawn to local foods like a moth to a lamp. He figured he’d choke it down somehow… (susan here: like a moth to a lamp for any food! I swear he’s part Hobbit.)
And you know what, Paul loved it! The portion was so huge he was only able to stuff in half. He took the rest back to the RV for a future lunch. Susan was sane and didn’t order the large. (susan here: even the regular size was a lot!) The nest of cheese melts into a gooey wonderful mess. You’ve probably noticed that the chili is on something white. You’d be right if you guessed spaghetti. You also wanted a knife to cut it. And we can see why our server wanted to know if we wanted bibs!
Sorry for this bad photo, it was a bowling alley but the other sign was much better, but is hard to shoot out the window.
And this is a very cool rest area. We’ll try and stop here if we are heading east.
Paul was carb crashing from the lunch so we stopped at a rest area for a diet coke. He found this cool bridge.
Hiram B. Trout and his brother, Everett Trout, were born on a farm about five miles north of this location. They operated a machine shop in Shelbyville, Illinois in the late 1800’s at which in time they invented and patented the unique design for this Pony Truss bridge. They built about 150 of these bridges between 1892 and 1897 which were erected in Shelby and neighboring counties. The design feature which makes this bridge unique is the use of round pipe in the top chords, end posts, and verticals instead of the usual rivet connected channel plates, and angle iron material. This bridge was erected on a township road near the small community of Fancher in Shelby County. It was in service for 88 years from 1895 until 1983 when it was reduced in width from 16 to 8 feet and moved 70 miles to this location for preservation by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Some of the fields were super green, and quite lovely.
By this point the winds were picking up again. We were down to hour long shifts because driving was just so fatiguing. So much so, the navigator just chilled, didn’t even take any more photos. Ok, we did take one more. The arch was really looking pretty reflecting the sun.
We were so happy to pull into the CB in Fenton MO. We’d made the right call to stop as there was no way either of us wanted to do 51.7 more miles. We know this sounds weird but this is our favorite Cracker Barrel of all the ones we’ve visited. Definitely going to get breakfast there before we take off for another long travel day.
(The truly observant will notice that we never got of I-70 in the map. Please request a refund by putting your name and address on the back of a $20 bill.)
Daily: 430 miles
Total: 1,240 miles
Driving miles/Day: 413 miles/day
Overall miles/Day: 413 miles