Day 5

Day 5 - Friday - June 25, 2010

0600 Alarm goes off. Hit the snooze. The alarm on my new phone is nicer than my old phone - not too loud and obnoxious.

0610 Alarm goes off again. Time to get up.

0700 Still loading. Guess we're not leaving at 7 after all.

0710 All loaded. Pictures taken. Leaving Good Hope. Jo tells us that our map data is more than a year old and we should go online to have it updated. No kidding she's out of date. We've seen a couple examples on this trip already!

0739 Felisa says her Ipod acts like it isn't charged. Except that I just charged them yesterday (or so I thought). This is not good. We have a lot of driving to do today!

0825 Quincy, IL. Score a surprise Starbucks Drive-Thru. Yay! Way better than the McD's coffee I was headed for right next to it.

0828 Papa Murphy's. Wow - who knew Quincy was such a happenin' place to have all these yummy food options.

0831 Stop at Hardees for some breakfast. Everything on the breakfast menu looked so good when we stopped the other day I had to come back and try something else. Today it is the loaded breakfast burrito.

0846 Mississippi River and Missouri

1008 Macon, MO. Gas, $2.57/gallon. It smells like dead fish out here. But on the bright side - the gas station had a 4-stall women's bathroom. No waiting in line! Woo hoo!

1147 Billboard ad for the billboard company... "Making heavy traffic bearable." Huh? What heavy traffic?

12:00 p.m. Ryan's MP3 player is dying a slow and painful death. Might be time to buy him a new one. He earned this one as a prize for selling Cub Scout Popcorn which is great. But I think it is reaching the end of its life expectancy.

12:01 p.m. See a mailbox in the shape of a hammer

12:11 p.m. Burger King for lunch and a bathroom break, just outside St. Joseph. I have to have one more pork sandwich before I leave the midwest!

12:29 p.m. Missouri River and Kansas. There is a rotating drawbridge downstream.

12:44 p.m. See a sign for the Lewis and Clark Auto Tour. That sounds interesting. Maybe we should see some Lewis and Clark stuff on one of our upcoming trips.

2:36 p.m. Bella and Felisa told me they saw a deer.

2:40 p.m. Bella: "This looks nice." when we are stopped for a road construction one-lane road section. It is currently one more hour until our planned stop in Lebanon, KS to see the geographic center of the US.

2:44 p.m. This is taking longer than I thought.

2:47 p.m. Finally it is our turn to pass through the single lane.

2:53 p.m. We have reached the other end of the construction zone and see a long line of cars waiting to head back to the east.

3:12 p.m. Spur of the moment detour to see the Pawnee Indian Village Museum.

3:19 p.m. Sign for the museum points us down a dirt road. Okay...

3:28 p.m. Arrive in Republic, KS. No museum in site. Has Jo led us astray once more? I check the map. The museum seems to be a bit more southwest of where we are now so I backtrack to the road that had the most recent sign on it and follow that road a little farther. The kids are asking about Jo and the museum. I told them I would have to find it the old-fashioned way, using maps and signs!

3:34 p.m. One lane truss bridge across a river

3:38 p.m. We found it! Woo hoo!

4:11 p.m. Done at the museum. Our favorite parts:
Felisa - Staring at all the purple flowers she could find
Bella - the tiny model of the house
Ryan - the original floor of the house inside
Sheila - that we found it

It is very pretty out here but I think the constant gusting wind would just drive me batty!

The trip away from the museum is much easier since a paved highway leads right into it. Grrr - Jo!

4:40 p.m. Mankato, KS for gas. $2.69/gallon. Get a bottle of water out of the cooler for Ryan.

5:09 p.m. Geographic center of the 48 contiguous United States!

5:47 p.m. World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, KS. As we drove up, one of the kids said, "That sucker is huge!"

6:02 p.m. Leaving Cawker City. We took pictures of the twine then followed the painted Yellow Twine Road up and down the 3 blocks of town to see all of the twine-inspired art in the windows. Bella needs to go to the bathroom but everything is closed so we get in the car and head west to the next town.

6:06 p.m. See a long-horn cow in the field. Does the cow ever get tired of holding those giant heavy horns up? And does it bump into things all the time? I sure would if I had big ol' horns sticking out like that, getting in the way.

6:08 p.m. Bathroom stop in Downs, KS.

7:32 p.m. Pizza Hut in Hill City, KS. We tried the local specialty of BBQ Beef pizza. It was pretty good. We took the leftovers with us so the kids can have a snack after swimming at the hotel later (if we ever get there!).

8:15 p.m. Leaving Pizza Hut

8:23 p.m. Kids turn on a movie.

8:36 p.m. I have now used up all the podcasts I downloaded before I left. Now what am I going to do? Just listen to music?

8:44 p.m. Hoxie, KS

8:53 p.m. Lightning ahead. What is it about Colby and lightning? I seem to recall there being a lightning storm a few years ago when we drove into Colby after a long day in Kansas.

8:55 p.m. There is lightning to my left and the setting sun is blinding me to the right. In the middle, rain on my windshield.

8:57 p.m. Windy out here - the dust from the dirt road is blowing out onto the highway.

8:58 p.m. Rainbow behind us and to the left. It's a very bright one!

8:59 p.m. Now a double rainbow.

9:01 p.m. Why do birds keep flying in front of me? Do they want me to hit them?

9:04 p.m. Buffalo! A herd of buffalo along the side of the road. I almost missed them because I thought they were just more cows.

9:06 p.m. Maybe all this excitement at the end of the day is our reward for surviving a long day on the road.

9:25 p.m. There is a strange orange spot up in the middle of all the rain clouds. I'm sure it's the moon but seems unbelievable to be able to see half of the moon in the midst of a storm.

9:26 p.m. I-70 - back on the interstate and catching the back end of the storm. I thought we might miss it but don't think so anymore.

9:34 p.m. RAIN! Also, there is a police car on the other side of the highway. Its lights are on and it is facing the wrong way. I wonder how many drivers are confused by his headlights shining on them.

9:35 p.m. Mountain Time Zone

8:37 p.m. Out of the rain and the temperature is 65 degrees now. I wonder if it's humid outside? It was 98 degrees earlier today.

8:56 p.m. At the hotel. There are no vacancies. Good thing we had Ron call ahead and get us a reservation! The room is nice but we are facing the front of the hotel and have a view of the drop-off roof. I go back out to the car to get the rest of the stuff and stop to take some pictures of the lightning.

9:40 p.m. Headed to the pool.

10:30 p.m. Back in the room. Showers, snacks, and finally - bed time!