Road trip update #10

Thursday, July 19th we left fairly early from St. Louis. We had a long drive ahead of us along with a visit with some friends for lunch.

We had a rather uneventful drive to Higginsville, MO, where we met our friends Paul, Melissa and Mary. They are friends from our days at Trinity Presbyterian Church and moved out to Missouri a number of years ago. It was fun to reconnect with them, but due to the impending rain (yes, it was still with us) we met for lunch at a Chinese buffet instead of at the local fair. Sure enough, about half way through our meal it started to pour. But it had stopped by the end of our meal, so we walked over to the 4-H booths and checked out the pigs. They were waiting for the sale later that evening and who knows, maybe one of them will be someones bacon soon (no offense to any vegetarians reading this).

We headed on our way into the wide state of Kansas. It actually has a lot of variety in its scenery and was beautiful. We took some country roads to avoid Kansas City and the toll roads. We followed the Oregon Trail for a while. Jon wasn't too tired and so we pressed on driving 2/3 of the way across the state before stopping at a Days Inn in Russell, KS. I had considered camping, but with the rain clouds following us, we decided to drive a little longer and stay at a hotel -- a wise move that night. By driving farther than planned this also allow us a shorter drive the next day as we headed to Pueblo, CO.

If you saw our original agenda, you know that Pueblo wasn't on it. We were hoping to see friends in Boulder, up off I-70, but they were out of town. When Jon's cousin Chris Moran heard that we were driving through CO, he invited us to dinner. What he didn't realize was that I would then ask if we could spend the night. He very graciously allowed up to use his empty guest room, which was a great place for our air mattresses. Chris was at our wedding 15 years ago, but that was the last time we had seen him, so it was great to get reconnected. He treated us to dinner and gave us a great tour of the quaint town of Pueblo, CO.