Sunday 18 October 2015

October 18th - Colby, Kansas


On the road before dawn again, and a good thing, too.  Ran west on the I-80 for a while, then south, and south-west, off the interstates at last.  Surprise of the day was Yucca growing along the highway, in Nebraska!  Who'd a thunk it grew that far north?  It was nice to finally get off the Interstates; the advantage they offer in quick travelling time is also the disadvantage, isolating you from the local towns, wayside stops, and a truer sense of the country you're passing through.  We had lunch at a beautiful county park along the highway, mature cottonwoods, well kept grounds, flush toilets, the works.  The usual lunch, snooze and Kirk walk ensued.  The wayside stops on the Interstates are full, trucks-only, or closed. (Weird to me, why would you close them? Budgets?)  When we started off again, we were steadily climbing into drier and drier country.  Sedimentary rocks are starting to protrude from hillsides, the earth is starting to show her bones.  And then there was the wind.  Gusty 35-40 mph, SSW.  Windy, in Kansas, who knew.  Kirk says, now I know what happened to Toto.  (Nancy)  We struggled along at 80 Kph, with the Bigfoot fighting the 3/4 headwind.  So we called the day early, at Colby.  We pulled into the Walmart parking lot (the town park was back-in only, and the only RV park in town is full of permanent/transient workers, it really wasn't just me wanting to save $25, honest),  behind a building, out of the wind.  To our surprise, it was also 32 C.  We cranked the generator, turned on the air, some tunes, had a drink and a snooze in our quiet personal paradise, while the hot, gusty, gail raged outside.  Ah, bliss!
We only have cell wi-fi at present, so if someone with bandwidth could investigate how to remove those dratted alternate routes from google maps, I'd appreciate it if you could drop me an email.
Election day tomorrow.  Remember, if you don't vote, you don't get to bitch.

407 Km. today

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