Kansas

So much to say since I last wrote, so I am going to break it down by state. I can never successfully describe the beauty of these places. I wish all of you have the chance to see the West someday. 

Louisville KY is so pretty. The Ohio River flows all around it and the big iron bridges surrounding the city are awesome. You probably saw some of those pictures already. It is hard to get good pictures while driving or riding but we try.

I was getting anxious to see the Gateway to the West in St. Louis. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought maybe the road went through it. It doesn’t. It is in the middle of a  park right beside the river and you drive around it. There really isn’t much else to see in St. Louis. We were through it in no time. Pops did his best to take these pictures while I was driving.

Later that afternoon it was my turn to drive. It was getting dark, figures. I don’t really care for night driving when I don’t know the roads. I was doing okay and the miles were passing by and then suddenly I was going down a steep hill. I thought to myself, “This is pretty steep. I don’t like it.” I no sooner thought that when I noticed iron trusses on both sides of me. I was going down a mountain and across a bridge at the same time! Oh my. Eyes on the road and keep in your lane, Noni.

You cannot really enjoy much when you are driving at night but every once in a while something will catch your eye. I was coming through Blue Springs, MO. I saw a sign that said, home of David Cook, American Idol. Cool.

Kansas City was next. It was huge. It’s lights stretched out for miles. I had to drive right through the middle of the city. I was in awe. The road system was impressive. It had so many cloverleafs right downtown. But what was even more impressive was that some of the city was built over top of the roadways. And the roads weren’t underground. There were tunnels going across overhead, from one building to the next. The tunnels looked white, but kind of see through. I was thinking that it was a covered walkway, but then I saw a blue flash go through it. It must have been a train or something. The city smelled like a mixture of burning plastic and sharpie markers.

Not long after that we started to have some mechanical issues. Our drop axle on our truck that we put down when we are carrying a heavy load seemed to be hanging up like a brake dragging or something. Geesh, that could cause us a fine. Then one of our headlights went out. We stopped to buy a headlight but each of the screws were different and all of them were stripped out. And once again our water pump quit working. Grrrrrrr!

Pops got grumpy and whacked the light and it came on. Okay, good. We’ll deal with the drop axle later and I can jugs of hot water from the truckstops. No big deal.

When I woke up next we were crossing the Prairies of Kansas, miles and miles and miles of cut fields, nothing to see. Every once in awhile you would see off in the distance what looked like a city with skyscrapers; but as you got closer you could see that it was silos, large silos. There were hundreds of silo cities through Kansas. I kept hoping to see a prairie dog. Pops saw one, but I didn’t. I did see a rattlesnake though along the road. There were signs everywhere stating, watch out for rattlesnakes.

The deer in Kansas were as big as cows. Pops and I both thought so. We also saw many coyotes. They were everywhere. Probably eating the prairie dogs. We also saw a herd of antelope.

It was so flat. So nothing. At one point I told Pops that I have never seen so far in all my life. You can literally look for miles into the distance. He told me that while he was driving at night he would drive for 25-30 miles and not see a light of any kind. Wow, that’s vast.

On Sunday morning we stopped at a truckstop in Oak Grove, Kansas. We got our headlight fixed and all the screws changed so we can do it ourselves from now on. We also got new wiper blades put on. And our drop axle fixed. We got all of our laundry done including the sheets and blankets. I cleaned the truck really good and we got showers. I felt amazing now. Everything was clean!

I took the dogs for a walk while at the truckstop. Suddenly they  started yipping and “walking on their tiptoes?” What the world? I thought maybe the pavement was hot but it wasn’t really that hot out. Something was jagging my foot. I looked down and had a bunch of some kind of tiny little burrs sticking to my pants and shoes. I reached down to pull them off and wow, it was like tiny, miniature cactus thorns or something. I got them in my fingers. Ouch! And the poor dogs had them in their paws. We got them picked out though, except I still have one in my finger somewhere. I feel it, but can’t see it.

Pops and I both spotted a tumbleweed blowing across a field at the same time. We were like little kids, laughing about that. My sister wanted me to bring her one home. Where would I put that? And honestly I think they are grown up burr grass. I’m not touching them.

Okay, here comes Colorado. One mile away. What is that? Do I see a mountain? Can that thing off in the distance be a mountain? I am excited.