Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Kansas City Here We Come or We've Gone About as Fer as We Can Go

You can choose your title depending on your affinity to blues or musicals. I wish we could have spent more time in Kansas City and I feel badly for thinking, out of ignorance, it wasn't a cool town -- it is. There's alot happening and it's lovely and elegant in parts, and it has great barbeque. We could only stay a short time and next time I hope to see the Jazz Museum, the Negro Baseball League Museum and the National Frontier Trails Museum; also to ride on the Katy Trail, a rail trail bike trail. It's so weird that a city is in two states.

It's All About Family

It was GREAT to start off our trip with visits to family: Chuck and Mike in Cincinnati, Jennifer in Lexington, Cindy in St. Louis and Laura in Kansas City. We took Molly to Chuck's house, where she (of course) gave Chuck a hard time but really took to Lanna, Mariah and Autumn. Mike surprised us on I-75 near Wilmington, OH - he pulled into our lunch stop with his big rig! And then he brought Lisa, Chelsea, Katie and Emily to our campsite in Florence, KY to see the Jayfeather. Thanks, Mike, for the driving tips!

Right after Mike left us we drove through my old "hometown" of Lebanon, OH. Here's a picture of me in front of our old house at 17 Roxie Court...looks a lot smaller now! Had some Skyline coney dogs, too! Oh, and did I mention that we had Graeter's ice cream every day while in Cincy and Lexington?

From Florence we drove down to the Kentucky Horse Park campground, where we shamelessly left the Jayfeather alone for two days while we stayed in Jennifer's lovely basement guest room. Molly managed it all well, even though Gavin is only 2.5 years old and Lauren is only 1.5 years old, and she and Samantha-the-mellow-dog got along pretty well.

In St. Louis Molly got to meet LOTS of dogs when Cindy took us to the dog park with her dogs River and Wilson Tibbs. Molly held her own - I have great videos to post at a later date...


From St. Louis we zipped over to Kansas City and went to visit Laura and Ellen. Molly got to meet another dog, sweet old Hershey, and the girls took us out for GREAT K.C. barbecue. Then we strolled around the Plaza and along Brush Creek and it was an absolutely gorgeous day, weatherwise. It was just so wonderful to see Laura, who I have missed SO much, and to get to know Ellen better. Next time, it needs to be a longer visit, though!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

The beginning

During our first week out we, of course, experienced some firsts including staying in the types of places RVer’s overnight in -- long or short term. By now,we’ve spent our first night in a truck stop (Flying J); settled in at our first campground, named Oak Creek; our first ‘primitive’ site was at the Kentucky Horse Park (no hookups); and we were welcomed at the first of (we hope not too many infamous Wal-Marts in St. Louis. Our hitching up time is vastly improved.
Starting out along the PA turnpike, we were aware of seeing a familiar route at a slower pace and from up high, and so noticed things we hadn't noticed before -- a different view, a new building. We've figured that when towing the trailer, we're adding a half-hour to every hour of car-only driving time. Slow is good. We have lots to talk about, swell tunes, many sites to see (though Ohio, Illinois and Indiana are sooo flat.)
Molly has been a model traveler so far. She quickly took to the Tahoe after realizing she COULD jump right on in and her initial hesitancy with the trailer has transitioned to relative comfort. She seems to like that there's lots going on inside and out and (surprisingly) her barking has been minimal. She misses Sally and CJ though -- she just told me.
While driving through OH and KY, Bobbie hosted a few trips down memory lane -- Fort Ancient, the pumpkin fest in Circleville, church camp in Wilmington, and a tour of Lebanon, OH. All which balanced my trips through Walton and Waterbury during the past year.

Scene on the Road
Tiny trailer
Hugest tires
‘Jesus is Lord’ mud flaps
barnartist.com

Soundtrack
Road to El Paso (Texas singer songwriters)
Spring Mix – Rosanne Cash, James Hunter, Norah Jones, Teddy Thompson
The Calling – Mary Chapin Carpenter
A Few Small Repairs – Shawn Colvin
Funnel Cloud – Hem
Kim Richey – Kim Richey

Seven days, Seven states

Well, we’ve been out for a week and we’re quickly getting our road legs. We wish you could be here with us, but since you can’t, we hope that reading this blog will give all of you a sense of “you were there.” For those of you new to the blogosphere, you can click on the word ‘comments’ below this post and write back to us.