1112 August 19-August 21, 2024 Making Our Way West
The last night in Atlanta, Austin had me put him to bed…just one more time. That evening, he read to me from Green Eggs and Ham. He was filled with pride and I was too!
On Monday morning, there were a few tears. Oliver was very sad that we were leaving. This made my heart feel heavy and I thought about him all day. Even as the distance between us was growing. I am still excited for this trip but it is always so hard to leave…
We drove first to Snellville. I was relieved, as I always am, to find our RV waiting for us in the storage lot. We unpacked the Jeep and organized our belongings. We began our journey at 10am. Tim drove through awful, midmorning Atlanta traffic. It wasn’t until nearly Tennessee that we were able to travel the speed limit.
Lunch at the Teneessee Welcome Center.
We took 24W outside of Chattanooga. We crossed the Tennessee River. This was the prettiest part of our drive.
We continued west over the Ohio River and into Kentucky.
We stopped at around 5pm at the Paducah Walmart. This was convenient. We spent an hour gathering groceries and supplies. There were posted NO OVERNIGHT PARKING signs. We stopped at the service desk to inquire and we learned that we were welcome to stay.
We had a surprisingly quiet night. It was nice to sleep in our own bed and we were able to keep the windows open. The cool air felt amazing after weeks of sweltering heat.
Laps at Walmart in the morning. I am always looking for something beautiful…the early morning full moon.
Patriotic overpass somewhere in Illinois.
Through Saint Louis, over the great Mississippi and past the Arch…The Gateway to the West. We have been here before and had no time to stop. We want to get to Colorado and Wyoming before the weather turns cold. We do remember that the area around the arch was amazing. The surrounding areas were industrial steel plants, abandoned buildings, and appeared to be very impoverished.
We took 70W to the middle of Missouri to the town of Columbia. We had stopped for fuel in the midafternoon. I had scoped out several camping options an hour or more out. We saw the Cracker Barrel across the street from the gas station and we decided to stop there for the night. We had a decent dinner and afterward, we sat on the front porch watching the traffic on 70.
Wednesday morning, we set out again after our morning workouts. There wasn’t really a safe space to walk so I resorted to laps in the Cracker Barrel lot.
We traveled through Kansas City and Topeka. Until now, the ride was fairly unremarkable…lots of highway flanked by trees. After Topeka, the landscape changed. It was open and rolling. Iniitially there were farms but then we entered the Flint Hills Region. This area is too rocky for crops. This is the largest intact area of prairie grass in North America.
We settled for the night at Milford Lake at the West Rolling Hills Campground in Junction City, Kansas. It is a beautiful Army Corps of Engineers park. With our National Parks Senior Pass, our water/electric site was $12.00. It is warm but breezy. There is very little humidity.
I spent some time walking. Tim rode his bike. We needed to be in a pretty place, we needed hookups, and we needed a break. Tim has driven about 1,000 miles this week and we have lots more miles to go.
We had grilled salmon Caesar salad with papaya for our dinner. Afterward, we went out to enjoy the sunset. We watched a bald eagle snag a fish from the lake and take it to a dead tree to eat. Too far away for good pictures, but very cool to see. Tomorrow…onward!
