My wife and I decided to go south of St. Louis for the eclipse. This was a good spot considering we were meeting family from Minnesota and Iowa. The totality center line was about 90 miles south of St. Louis where we had an Air B&B for the night before. We initially thought a good spot to be would be Jackson City Park. At that site, the eclipse start time was 12:41 pm so we left at 9:15. Google maps had the trip listed at 1hr 39 min. Shortly after leaving the ETA started going up and up. Traffic was horrible. Because of traffic, we decided to stop near the north Jackson Drury Inn on I55. Here totality was 4 min 14 sec. Before we reached that destination we stopped (about 10 miles north) to see the start of the eclipse. After a few minutes of observing the initial contact we set out for our final observing location. There were many, many people there. We found a nice spot to set up on a hill overlooking the Drury Inn. We arrived about 1:15 pm (start of totality was 1:58 pm). So it took us about 4 hr to go 90 miles. There were high wispy clouds – nothing bad. The eclipse was phenomenal. We stayed until after last contact (3:17 pm). I looked at maps just after totality. It said 1hr 45 to the motel by the St Louis airport as we were flying out the next day. By the time we left, drive time increased 30 min. We started to drive and again, the drive time went up and up and up. We took all suggested quicker routes that maps suggested. The drive was so long that we stopped at a gas station with a Subway to pee and eat. It was packed. They started to run out of bread, meat, and toppings. All in all a 1:45 drive took about 7 hr (with the stop). My brother-in-law called while we were driving and my daughter told him this was the worst traffic she had ever been in. He said something like “it eclipsed all other traffic jams!”. How appropriate and clever. The rest of our party was going to go to Iowa but ended up staying in our room. Room for 2 ended up as a room for 9. Luckily we had 2 queens and some floor space! We would have gotten another room but everything was booked. It still turned out okay. In the morning we took a shuttle to airport and the others started their drive to Iowa. For me I will remember the eclipse first and the traffic second. For the others it will probably be the traffic first and the eclipse second!