A De Soto couple have become well known on social media for their weekend adventures across Missouri and southern Illinois.
Chances are if you’ve been on Facebook or TikTok lately, reels have popped up of Bob and Lisa Mira, with 20-year-old Bethany, their youngest daughter often joining them.
On TikTok, where they are known as White Trash Adventures, they have 73,500 followers. They currently have 25,000 followers on Facebook, after having to start over on that platform in January.
They are also on Instagram, Clapper and YouTube (as well as many lesser-known platforms) and altogether have about 200,000 followers.
“I post on those five every day,” said Bob, 54, who works full-time in the maintenance department at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.
He films and edits the videos, which are normally under three minutes long, on his phone.
Their social media presence started nearly a year and a half ago.
“I had my TikTok for several years,” Bob said. “During COVID, like most people when they didn’t have anything else to do, I was mostly watching other people’s videos. But every once in a while, I would put something on there, something goofy. That’s how the name ‘White Trash Adventures’ came about – because I was usually working on cars on blocks.”
“I guess it was February of last year, I posted a video from Gordon’s Stoplight Drive-In (in Crystal City), and it hit 300,000 views. I thought, ‘Hey this might be a good thing to start sharing stuff like this.’ Our videos then started really blowing up. A lot of them, at that time, were getting tens of thousands of views.”
He started the White Trash Adventures Facebook page a few months later, and it “blew up” in September, rapidly gaining 52,000 followers.
But in January, they encountered problems with the Facebook page.
“They told us we broke a rule; we didn’t quite know what that rule was,” said Lisa, 54, who works full-time as a data manager for De Soto School District. “We figure it was the ‘White Trash’ name, so we tried changing the name of the page, but they still weren’t pushing it out to people.”
So, in February, Bob created the new Facebook page, Show Me Adventures. He renamed the Instagram and YouTube accounts but left TikTok as White Trash Adventures.
Bob uses the same simple format for filming.
For a restaurant, Bob videos the exterior as they are walking in, normally starting off with “Alright, we’re at …” He then pans over the menu and gives viewers a 360-degree view of the place. They discuss what they have ordered and then after eating, they go outside to give the verdict of whether they liked the experience.
Spoiler alert: They did. Otherwise, they wouldn’t post it.
“We don’t post anything negative,” Bob said. “I get a lot of comments, ‘Why don’t you ever post a bad review?’ There are thousands of people out there that post bad stuff, and it’s just not what we do. Every experience is different. We might go someplace and love it. You might go someplace and hate it.”
Most places they visit are locally owned.
“If you’re posting something bad, one bad review can just kill a place,” Lisa said.
Having fun
Throughout their 33 years of marriage, the Miras have always enjoyed traveling. They’ve been to 42 out of 50 states. They enjoy their Saturday adventures together.
“We’ve just always done this kind of thing where we just go out and try new places and things like that, but now we are doing it with more purpose,” Lisa said.
Lisa keeps a notebook that contains hundreds of suggestions from followers of places to try.
“We’ve been to so many cool restaurants and stores,” Bob said. “A lot of people suggest places to us so we’re going out there and seeing these places for the first time. We search out those little hole-in-the-wall places. (Papa D’s) Man Cave comes to mind. It’s in (Osage City outside Jefferson City), and it’s a little garage. A lot of times, unless you are a local, you wouldn’t find out about it.”
So far, the longest trip they have taken to visit a new place was Festus Jack’s Restaurant in Crane, near Branson.
With soaring gas prices, they try to stick to one area for the day’s adventures.
“Contrary to popular belief, we don’t eat out every day,” Bob said. “We really only do this on the weekends. And for the longest time now, it’s been only on Saturdays. But we’ll go out, and we’ll shoot eight, 10, even 12 videos in a Saturday.”
“We’ll shoot breakfast, a lunch and a dinner and then sometimes a dessert if I find like an ice cream shop or something like that to shoot and then the rest of them are parks or stores, just random things you see on the side of the road,” Lisa said.
Lisa said they try to work in free places to visit.
“We look at what is near here that is free: Grant’s Farm, the zoo, the history museum, the art museum” Lisa said. “I had never been to the Soldiers Memorial (Museum) in downtown St. Louis, and it was interesting. And all the state parks are free. We have hit up several state parks.”
In Jefferson County, sometimes they visit places that are not new to them. For example, a recent reel showed the family visiting Junction Cafe on De Soto’s Main Street, where Bethany enjoyed her favorite off-the-menu breakfast pizza.
They recently posted reels trying Pink Margaritas in Arnold and El Mariachi in Byrnes Mill for the first time. Another reel showed them enjoying the food, atmosphere and window seats at The Brick Bistro in downtown Festus and “probably the best tortellini ever” at Trattoria Giuseppe in Otto.
In Eureka, the trio and a friend tried out Chick N Elly’s for breakfast, which they liked, and Bob raved about the tender steak on his Frisco sandwich.
Lisa enjoys finding bargains and interesting finds. In March, Lisa and Bob spent a couple hours finding bargains at the annual Eureka Chamber of Commerce Garage Sale and Swap Meet.
Kimmswick’s Strawberry Festival had plenty of one-of-a-kind, handmade crafts for the family to look at during their visit June 7.
They barely made it a block early that Sunday morning in Kimmswick before people recognized them and excitedly approached.
Monica Rhodes of Granite City, Ill., was the first to stop them. She told them she is a follower and went to The Golden Hoosier, a south St. Louis neighborhood bar, based on their recommendation.
“It’s fun to see the different things they are trying,” she said.
Andy and Jamie Evans of Imperial were the next to spot them. Andy said he’s been watching their videos since they started.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Andy told them. The couple said the reels give them ideas of places to try.
Kyle Hylton of Arnold, owner of Fins Outdoors, gave Bob a free hat and asked him how they built their social media platform.
“You guys are awesome,” Hylton said. “You guys are famous. You are everywhere.”
After the couple shrugged, Bob provided a few tips he has learned about building a social media presence. One tip Bob gave was to post something every day. He said he had 30 edited videos in the hopper ready to be posted. On Facebook, he can schedule those in advance but in TikTok, he posts manually.
The social media pages do allow for 99-cent a month subscriptions, but many people follow for free.
“We don’t really make much money off any of this, but we are monetized,” Bob said.
He said they were able to donate some money from social media to De Soto School District fundraisers.
“And we bought a baseball team,” Bob joked, before adding they are just sponsors of their granddaughter’s T-ball team.
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