2008 - Week 1

April 29, 2008:

We were almost ready to take off today, Monday 4/28/2008, but no quite, and the heavy rains gave use an excuse to stay home one more day. Daisy knows something is going one and is staying very close. The RV refrigerator and freezer are full, and the stuff is packed well enough to allow us to take off tomorrow morning. It always takes a few days for everything to settle in.

We closed up the house (always takes longer than expected) and departed Sykesville at 12:30pm. We traveled west on I-70, then I-68 to Morgantown WV, north on I-79 where re connected to I-70. With a few exceptions, we will probably stay on I-70 until we get to Sedalia Co where we’ll connect with our daughter Diana and husband Paul.

I am afraid to say that we ate our way across WV and OH, stopping at a Dairy Queen and Steak and Shake before stopping at 9:00pm in a KOA on Buckeye Lake. For the sailors, Buckeye Lake is one of the places George Fisher has raced. I talked to George today, and we will see him in late morning at his home.

April 30, 2008:

Up in the morning for a walk down to Buckeye Lake YC while Susie took Daisy for a run. The Yacht Club is an historic building, built on an island, which I suspect was man-made. We found out later from George that the lake was originally 1 mile wide and 9 miles long, but is now 12 miles long. We suspected that it is mostly powerboat heaven now. After breakfast and a shower, we left to visit George Fisher. Our new GPS proves the point that sometimes new is not always better. George lives on the west side of Columbus in Hilliard and is fairly close to an Interstate, however the GPS took us through downtown Columbus. We wondered why we were not on the Interstate. Anyway, after a call to George, we found that we were on the wrong side of a river and would have had to swim the RV across. George straightened us out. We had a great time with George and Marty and stayed a bit more than an hour.

We drove on to Saint Paris OH to visit Pat and Walter Hill, friends from our days in Flemington NJ. I had not seen then for almost 23 years, but it was a warm and comfortable visit. Seems that real friends can resume conversations as if they had never parted. They are a farming couple, and the two of them farm about 450 acres while still keeping a beautiful homestead. It was nice to hear their thoughts on the state of the country, the price of corn, the price of diesel, etc. While driving to their place, we had exited I-70 and drove for 40 miles along the back roads. Wonderful farmland and clean farms the entire drive. We passed through the town of Urbana and fell in love with the old brick houses. There must have been lots of money there in the early 1900’s. We went to dinner with the Hills in a nearby (15 miles) town.

May 1, 2008:

We had breakfast with the Hills and solved all the remaining problems of the country. There was a discussion about wind power, and we all felt that it was a bit strange that people object to the sight of wind turbines but don’t seem to mind large transmission line towers, cell phone towers and highway billboards! We left the Hill’s at 11:30am and went to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton OH. It was a great 4 hours, and had we not been to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum STEVEN F. UDVAR-HAZY CENTER adjacent to Dulles Airport, we would have spent more time there. We returned to I-70 and headed west. We can confirm that the cost of fuel has not reduced truck or passenger car traffic. There was a strong crosswind making the RV a bit difficult to drive. The speed limit is 70mph in Indiana, but no one was going that fast. We pulled off the road just south of Greencastle IN to spend the night and prepare to see DePauw University where daughter Meredith’s has been hired as an Asst Professor in the Arts Program. Warm (sort of) showers were had by all and a few hours spent by Susie drawing her pictorial history of the day finished off the day. 1,040 miles remain to Sedalia, CO daughter Diana’s home.

May 2, 2008:

We had a bit of rain last night. We had breakfast in a small diner in Greencastle and then went to DePauw. We had a great time there and are confident that Meredith and husband Michael Ray have made a great choice. After leaving DePauw around noon and heading west, the rain came down hard for more than an hour. Visibility was terrible, and everyone slowed down, even the truckers. We saw some lightning, but it was to the south. Shortly after we crossed the IN/IL border, the skies started to clear, but the wind began to blow from the SW, with gusts probably in the 40 mph range. Once again the RV was a bit to handle, and we were forced to slow to 55 mph. As we passed through St Louis we were surprised how far suburbia reached to the west. We tried to stop at one RV place for the night, but the entire Interstate interchange was “sin city”, and we decided to drive on. The wind was with us the entire day, and the temperatures dropped so that by the time we reached the vicinity of Kansas City KS, it was in the mid-50’s with a low of 40 expected for the night. Billboards, billboards and more billboards! They were everywhere. Gas prices in MO were $3.399/gallon; go figure. We filled the RV with gas several times, and the credit card or pump shut down at $100, a sign of things to come. We just heard that Exxon-Mobil had profits of $10.9 billion in the first quarter. We could use some of that. Near Salinas KS, we passed through a 50+ unit windfarm that was being expanded. We drove 420 miles today, too much for a day when we started late and had bad weather. We spent the night in a KOA located in Oak Grove MO, but it was located adjacent to I-70. Noise all night long so not much sleep. The only catastrophe of the day was when I was getting ready for bed and a tooth crown fell off. Moral: be careful when you floss is you have crowns. I hope get it fixed when we get to Sedalia.

May 3, 2008:

Daisy started the day with a game of ball toss and then went on a run with Susie. We left the KOA and stopped west of Kansas City to visit the Moon Marble Company that Susie discovered through an article in Smithsonian magazine. We watched as the artisan made a glass marble with numerous strands of color on the interior. It was a fantastic shop with all sorts of toys. Before we left, Susie climbed to the roof of the RV and secured the TV antenna that has decided to rattle whenever we have a crosswind. A success, but I think we may need to buy some gorilla tape to made sure the fix is good. Back on I-70 to Abilene KS, the birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower, to see an old-time carousel. It was very primitive, but being able to see all the working parts was fun. This carousel is supported on steel wheels that run on a steel plate on the floor. We believe that all the other carousels we have seen were hung from and rotated around a center post. As we traveled west, we noticed that the geography of Kansas varies greatly, first good farmland, then a 75 mile stretch where exposed layers of sedimentary rock made the land suitable only for cattle grazing and then back to good farmland. The further west we traveled, the more irrigation was required. Signage brags, “Each Kansas farmer feeds 120 people plus YOU”. We drove 338 miles and stopped at 6:30pm at another KOA Campground at Wakeeney KS approximately 125 miles from the Kansas/Colorado border. Once again it was adjacent to I-70, but there was much less traffic and noise. We walked Daisy and had a chicken dinner from the George Foreman grill. It is perfect for a trip like this! The weather forecast indicates a low of 35 tonight.

May 4, 2008:

Up at 7:00am in time for Susie and Daisy to take a run, and Jamie to take a walk. The temperature was 39, but the wind direction had changed from NW to SW and the temperatures rose quickly. We left the campground at 9:30am CST and headed west on I-70. The further west, the more irrigated farmland until even that didn’t work. The land use transitioned from farming to grazing and poor it was. Just before we entered Colorado, we noticed areas of unmelted snow. They must have been remnants of snowdrifts. Still, the have snow the first part of May was unusual for us. We left the Interstate and drove the back roads fro the last 75 miles. We went over the top of a small hill, and there in the distance was Pikes Peak and miles later the rest of Rocky Mountains came into view. All were snow topped and quite beautiful. We now have to watch the weather to decide if we continue on I-70 through the Rockies or skirt around the southern end. We arrived at Diana’s at 2:30pm MST after driving 298 miles. We started this segment of the trip at elevation 2,400 feet and ended at 6,200 feet. Susie had not taken her altitude medicine and had a headache as a result. Susie, Daisy and I are very happy to stop and celebrated by taking a long walk through her neighborhood. It is very cloudy here but no precipitation.

May 5, 2008:
Sun was up early, the sky was cloudless and temperature was 40 degrees. Obviously the thermometer lagged the temperature because I was over-dressed for my morning walk with Daisy. As we reached the top of the hill, I was able to see the snow-capped Rocky Mountains (Daisy saw them also but didn’t comment) plus I realized how the thin the air is here as compared to sea level. It will take a few days to acclimatize ourselves. We made a few maintenance adjustments to the RV after this 1,700 mile shakedown. Diana, Susie and I went for a hike through the south portion of Roxborough State Park.

The temperature had risen to the point that we all wore shorts and sunscreen. This small park has several ridges of different rock types, with the red rocks being the most dominant. The ridge of red rock runs south from Denver along the eastern foothills of the Rockies to at least Colorado Springs and maybe more. Back to the house for a rest and then assembly of Diana’s new Weber grill. Unfortunately, she had planned to use natural gas as a fuel and was sold a unit designed for bottle propane. Several phone calls later, we found that she needed a different model that will be special ordered. No pork chops on the grill tonight!