calherewecome

Short day today, only drove about 300 miles today. We stopped in Lawrence KS to meet with Paula’s Aunt and family. We had a nice lunch at a local Chinese restaurant then returned to her house to have a cup of coffee and chat.

We decided to stop after 300 miles. We could have gone on but there aren’t any hotels between Salinas and the KS-CO border. There is a whole lot of prairie out there.

We are staying in a Holiday Inn Express. Nice place but a little bit pricey. Paying about $130 for the night. Includes free wifi, evening wine and snacks and hot breakfast. King size bed. The hostess was real nice. She kept coming back to fill up my glass of Merlot.

Night before we stayed in a Drury Inn. Nice hotel, seems to be local to Missouri, Mississippi and environs. Haven’t seen one in Kansas.

So we have another 250 miles to go to get to the CO border. About 50 miles back we passed FT Riley. Big Army base with lots of choppers.

Rest areas. Generally reset areas are cleaner than the bathrooms at gas stations. When we entered Mississippi the other day, we had free wifi, a free cup of coffee and the cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen.

When we entered Missouri yesterday, there was a kid taking down the state where people were from. I think we made his day when we told him “Massachusetts”. He said first one today. We told him probably the last.

Generally folks have been real friendly and polite. When we stopped at the river front park in Memphis, we watched a big pink limo pull up and a big black family piled out. They went over to a monument for a picture. The driver told us “Welcome to Memphis”.

We are using an app on my iPad and iPhone called “The Road Ahead”. Tells us what services are available at upcoming exits. Also, we used the “Diners, Dives and Drive-ins” app based on Guy Fiore’s TV show on the Food Network. Handy for finding great places to eat.

Tomorrow we continue on I70 towards Denver. I hope to turn the corner on I25 toward Cheyenne. One of the most amazing sites is to be driving west on I70 when you finally see the Rocky Mountains appear out of the haze.

We do a time change tomorrow. We gain an hour. It feels different when you drive across a time zone boundary rather than fly across. Makes for a longer day.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Salina, KS

This entry was posted on August 13, 2012 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Travel. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: travel, trip