QC03-05 Westward Ho

September 5, 2010 (Sun) Springfield, MO to Independence, MO (182/3257 miles) 64/86° - The phrase "rolling hills" is never so apparent as when driving north through Missouri. Picture an arrow-straight 4 lane highway centered in a very wide swath cut through green forest, undulating up and down as it recedes into the distance. That is Missouri to us. US13 was our path this morning. We expected a somewhat winding 2 lane road out of the Ozark Mountains. So did Hildene. Every few miles she'd instruct us to navigate back onto the road. A look at her screen map showed that she thought we were driving across open fields/farm land. No wonder she was so insistent! Apparently the highway we were on was build since her maps were created. In fact some signs along the road indicated that the road had been open only since summer.

The drive was easy and spectacularly beautiful all the way to Kansas City. Then the nightmare began. The interchanges, exits and lane changes on the interstates, the only way to get to where we needed to go, were bad enough but we also had to negotiate some city streets. Still not too bad. But we could not see the RV park from the address Hildene led us to, correct as it turned out. It looked like a city park rather than an RV park. We ended up in the congested streets of Independence where there was some sort of festival going on. Most of the streets were blocked. After calling the campground we knew where we needed to go but there was literally no way to get there, directly at least. We had to get out of the festival area and make a wide circle and come in from another angle. Even then the only way to break out of an endless loop that we found ourselves in was to go around a road block. Luckily no one saw us or cared if they had. We pulled into the campground at about 12:30 and took the showers we had put off this morning.

Ed and Kathy, on their way home from Alaska, arrived at about 2:00. We spent the afternoon talking travel experiences and then went to the Hi-Vee supermarket for dinner. Big mistake! Wegmans or Whole Foods they are not!!

Q064730 Campus RV Park, Independence, MO. #3 w/e/s $28.28 C

September 6, 2010 (Mon) Independence, MO to Goodland, KS (366/3623 miles) 69/84° - Campus RV Park was thickly populated (maybe 12' between rigs) and noisy (mainline trains went through very nearby every 15 minutes or so all night long, driven by engineers with sadistic bents (they would lay on the horn as they entered town and not let up until they were out, some five minutes later - it seemed like an hour), a next door neighbor's dog whining and barking to be let in 10 feet outside our bedroom window for about 20 minutes (11:30pm) and a diesel pickup, it turned out, left with its engine idling right in front of Q (12:30pm) But the company was superb! Thanks, Ed and Kathy, for meeting us and for the chance to share stories. We'll do it again sometime - in a different town.

We got off at about 7:30am, said good-bye to Ed and Kathy and drove west on Truman Rd (Independence, MO in the hometown of Harry Truman) to I-70. From there is was I-70 all the way across Kansas. There is not much to be said about the scenery. Kansas is pretty much flat and unremarkable. Some say that this stretch of the road as boring and they are relieved when it is behind them. To us it is beautiful and not at all boring. Even in the mid-western prairies there is an endless variety of landscape and things to see and talk about. We love it. The only distraction was the buffeting we got from heavy cross winds - 20 to 30 mph according to some radio meteorologists. We were both exhausted when we pulled into the Goodland, KS Walmart for the night.

Some interesting things along the way:

We'd seen signs every few miles for maybe 50 miles for an adult (sex) superstore. It turned out to be right off the interstate. On the ramp leading back onto the highway there was a large billboard that said, in part, "The eyes of the Lord are on you."

We saw huge wind mills across several ridge lines - hundreds of them. And later on we saw one of the blades for a similar windmill on a transport truck. It's unbelievable how big they are.

There were signs advertising, among other things - i.e. tourist trap goodies - the worlds largest prairie dog. We wanted to stop to take pictures to email to Jeff and Jennifer but would have had to pay to get in to see it!

Q065096 Camp Walmart Goodland, KS

September 7, 2010 (Tue) Goodland, KS to Franktown, CO (170/3793 miles) 51/77° - Since we'd gone to bed so early last night - as soon as it got dark - we were awake and ready to get up early this morning, 4:45! We were on the road at 5:15 (51° still dark but sky looked clear , no wind), got gas and proceeded west on I-70. At the first rest area we stopped and ate our breakfast watching the dawn. There was a beautiful sunrise in the rear view mirrors as we pulled onto I-70 again.

The scenery is all very "western" now with panoramic vistas of signature rolling knobby hills. Except for these very low variations the whole area seems almost flat, but in fact, we had been slowly going up for the last several days. Topping one particularly big hill our altimeter showed 6285 feet. That's over a mile above sea level!

We eagerly watched and waited for our first view of the Rockies but our vigil went unrewarded for quite some time because of haze on the horizon. We passed a building calling itself "Peak View Motel" and assumed that Pike's Peak must be visible from there so we made a concerted effort to see it and we did - very vaguely. The Rockies are still there.

We got to Jeremiah and Kim's at about 9:30 am. Frannie and Red Bone, their dog, were there to greet us. Jer and Lee were off shopping and Kim was working (via computer). We all got together after a while and had a great time visiting and renewing family relationships. For dinner we went to a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant in a near by town. Excellent!

September 8, 2010 (Wed) Franktown, CO (2) 61/76° - A day to hang out and visit. We continue westward tomorrow.

Q065266 Jer & Kim's yard