We made it quite a bit further than we had thought. Driving from Jim’s to Kansas City was on two, three, and sometimes four lane roads with stoplights and small towns to go through. When we were established on I-70 I did a quick calculation to find that we had averaged 56 miles per hour. A few hours later I checked again and we were averaging 61 miles per hour. We also gained an hour back when we crossed into Mountain Daylight Time around mile marker 36 in Kansas. We’re now in a very nice KOA campground near Denver. There is free wifi here and we’re both sitting at the table with computers open and busy. I’m writing in my blog, Nina is sending out some e-mail. It’s quarter past eight and we’ll figure out something to eat from the fridge/freezer in a few minutes. This has been our longest driving day of the trip.

And what a driving day it was. Shortly past Topeka the winds picked up from the south. Big, gusty winds that blew trucks and motorhomes around on the freeway. That made for active driving so we changed drivers more often so we wouldn’t be so tired. After a sketchy night’s sleep last night and a hard driving day today, we’ll both crash tonight. But — we’re in a good campground. The air conditioning is on. We’ve got hot water. It’s quiet. We’re not bouncing all over the freeway….

Nina asked me what were some of the memorable sights from the trip. My answer was “trees.” Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and across Kentucky literally all we could see from the roadway were trees. As we’ve come west today we went from trees everywhere to trees nowhere. We left rolling hills with lush greenery in Missouri to dry high plains in Colorado. The contrast is pretty stark. Tomorrow we’ll be in Soda Springs. Hurrah!

Today is another long driving day. We left Jim’s place in Springfield, Missouri about 7:30 a.m. this morning and are now about ten minutes from the beltway around Kansas City. We’ll be in Kansas in about twenty minutes headed ever westward. We have reservations at a campground just inside Colorado. It takes about nine hours to drive across Kansas so we should be at the campground about 7:30 p.m. MDT tonight. A drive equally as long tomorrow will put us in Soda Springs on Sunday Night. My brother Perry is driving over from Green River on Sunday afternoon and my sister Eileen is coming up from Sandy for a couple of days. We should have a fun visit. We’ll continue on home on Monday afternoon.

We had a nice but brief visit with Jim, LeeAnn, and family. We arrived about 6:30 p.m. on Thursday evening and parked in their driveway. After a quick bite, we joined Jim and the boys at the Cub Scout Pack Meeting. Jim’s new church calling is the Cub Master in the ward. After a fun-filled event we went back to Jim’s house and visited. Friday morning he went to work and we just did stuff around the house. I took the motorhome to fill it up with propane and Nina did a little grocery shopping. In the afternoon we went to a Civil War battlefield Wilson Creek and did a driving tour. Later that evening LeeAnn discovered that the kids had all picked up a good many little companions — tiny red ticks. After getting the kids de-ticked, having a lovely taco soup for dinner, Jim and I tackled another small task. His house, which is a very nice house, has all two-prong electrical outlets. We swapped a few of them for three-pronged outlets. They have a problem with the wind driving water under the garage doors and flooding the garage. We scoped out a couple of options to fix that at Home Depot. And that ended the day.

It was oppressively hot in Springfield yesterday and last night. I fired up the generator for a while so we could run the air conditioner and cool off the motorhome. The generator is too noisey to let run the whole night, so we sweated the night. Next time we’ll park in a campground where we’ll have 30 amp service.

Nina is driving and I’m at my computer table. We’ll run out of SprintPCS connection in a little while so this might be the last post on this blog until we get to Denver sometime Sunday morning. Kansas City is well behind us….

This has to be one of the nicest State Parks I’ve every stayed in. The park is just a few minutes north of Lexington on I-75 and it is just beautiful. The camp sites are spacious and it is very comfortable. We arrived here about 7:30 p.m. EDT this evening and have been trying to figure out how we could stay here a bit longer! I’ve been working on my pictures from Monday. I didn’t realize I had taken so many. They are now all resized and ready to be uploaded — but they’ll need to be put in a couple of topics. That won’t happen tonight, for sure.

We pulled out of the campground near West Chester at 7:25 a.m. this morning. We’ve drove up to the Pennsylvania turnpike and have been on expressways or freeways the rest of the day. West to I-81, south into Maryland, west on I-70 then I-68 into West Virginia. Then south in I-79 to Charleston connecting to I-64 west. Twelve hours after starting we pulled into this campground. We’ll be out of here early in the morning. Right now I’m outside at the picnic table while Nina is inside watching the finale of The American Idol. That program will be over in a few minutes and we’ll be off to bed for the night. Tomorrow we’ll be in Jim’s driveway in Springfield, Missouri.

Our visit to the Phoenixville area is winding down. We’re back at the campground after a full day of sightseeing in the area. We’ll leave tomorrow morning bright and early headed southwest into Kentucky expecting to get to Jim’s place in Springfield, Missouri sometime late Thursday afternoon.

We arrived here at the campground about 5:30 p.m. yesterday, set up camp, and then drove into Phoenixville to meet Daryl and go to dinner. He picked a place very close to his apartment and the food was well prepared. We had a very nice visit and arranged to meet him this morning after we picked up a battery charger for Nina’s digital camera battery in Exton, PA. (Daryl had called around to find a place that had the charger). The weather was very nice for sightseeing. Our first stop was Valley Forge where we took the driving tour and spent some time in the Welcome Center. Then we headed northeast to the New Jersey border to the Crayola Crayon Factory and Store. We picked up a number of items in the store but were too late to get on the last factory tour of the day. That’ll have to wait to another visit. After that we stopped at the Pez Museum in Easton (within 100 feet of the Crayon store). There Melissa gave us a lovely tour of the museum and answered several questions about Pez dispensers (did you know they got their start as a “stop smoking” aid?). Then it was back to Phoenixville for Daryl to get his car and lead us to TGI Fridays in Exton for dinner. There we had a very pleasant surprise as Daryl’s friend Laura joined us for dinner. We had a great conversation and Laura is a very pretty, very pleasant, delightful young lady. We’re now ready to call it a night and get up early tomorrow for the very long day of driving. I should be able to post some pictures tomorow.

We have just driven out of Chambersburg, Pennylvania where today the main road is all torn up and under construction but, more interestingly, where a Confederate General held the town hostage for $100,000 ransom. As an indication he meant business, they fired a cannonball through the city hall (spot is well marked). When the ransom was not paid, the downtown district was burned to the ground except for the city hall and the Masonic Lodge (saved by Confedrate Masons?). We had lunch at a Wendy’s Restaurant on the east side of town. We’re now headed towards Gettysburg which is about a half-hour away. The day is very pleasant. Mostly cloudy but no threat of rain. Light winds and cool temperatures round out the weather. The drive is beautiful. Everything is lush and green (it should be, considering all the rain of the past ten days) with trees and flowers in abundance. We’ll be at the campground in the area of 5 p.m.

The names of things around here are also interesting. We have the Moon Handbook for Pennsylvania which covers all the really important things in the state but misses all the little curiosities. For instance, where did Cash Town get it’s name? We can kind of get an idea about Brick Church but then Shrimpstown?? The highway is sometimes four lanes divided highway, other times two lanes with a turning lane, sometimes two lanes only, and at other times built like a freeway. There isn’t a lot of traffic except in some of the towns. Most of the drive is through rural countryside and we can almost always drive around 55 or 60. We have passed a lot of cemeteries, which raises in my mind the question, “Has this cemetery been documented on the internet?” Most have not. I’ve had a reasonable SprintPCS data connection for much of the drive today, so I’ve been able to stay pretty connected (Nina just got a phone call from Dawnmarie!). The desk works GREAT and I’ve been making very good use of it. I like being able to sit in the front seat and see everything going one and be able to be on the computer. We’re coming into Gettysburg after a pleasant drive from New Wilmington. The predicted pleasant drive is going very well. Route 30 has my vote for a nice drive.

Olivia Arlene Lunnen was given a name and a blessing this afternoon. It was definitely a special occasion and Kirk gave her a lovely blessing. She has a wonderful disposition. Later this afternoon I was able to hold her for a while and we both fell asleep. Very nice!

After the blessing ordinance was finished, we took several family pictures. Kate wasn’t very happy at the prospect having to be on the floor rather than standing on the couch behind mom and dad. She pulled a very special face! I had to take a few closeups of that pout. She wasn’t able to hold the pout very long, however.

It has finally stopped raining for a while. We had a very nice Saturday (see a previous post). Then I woke up to the sound of rain on the motorhome rooftop. We got up to rain this morning and it continued to rain throughout the morning. When we got out of Stake Conference, the sun was out and the rain was finished. It has been quite windy today, blowing the clouds away as a warm front came through. We should have very nice driving weather tomorrow.

We have had a very nice visit here despite the weather. It is a pretty time of the year to be in this part of the country. We’ve enjoyed spending time with Dawnmarie, Kirk, and the grandkids. Hopefully we’ve also been a bit of a help to Dawnmarie as she recovers from delivering the baby. We’ll leave in the morning for Philadelphia. We hope to arrive around five or six in the evening. The current plan is to not drive on the freeway / toll roads. We’ll take route 422 to Altoona, then drop south to US 30 and drive through Gettysburg and Lancaster on our way to Phoenixville. A nice, leisurely drive eastward. This will be the only driving day where we won’t have to press hard to get the miles behind us. I’m enjoying this small vacation.