Road trip - Day 3 KS to CO

After weathering another pretty good storm in the hotel for the second night, we started out early (after eating at IHOP). Heading west on 70 was all we had to do for most of the day. We decided that once we got near Denver we would decide what to do from there, since at this point we hadn't picked which route to take once we got there.

Central and western KS were beautiful. See for your self:










We saw our first pronghorn antelope as we pulled into a rest stop east of Denver to eat our lunch. With the rockies in sight, we were excited to get closer and see some of the mountains especially after 3 days of flat driving.

As we drove into Denver, we decided to go up through Boulder and into Rocky Mountain National Park, see some sights, and come back out a different route to catch up with I25 that would take us north to I80. Here are some of the pictures from this part:














After making our way out of the part and the mountains, we found a very nice hotel right next to the interstate in Loveland CO. Our room had a great view of the rockies, the service was great, the food was really good, and it was a great price! Here's the view:

Road trip Day 2 - June 20 2009

Dad and I got a good nights rest while a bad thunderstorm went through over night. We awoke to clear skies and got an early start. The directions for the day were simple: get on I70 west bound and get off when tired, hungry or when nature calls.

We made in through Indiana pretty quickly. It is a nice state with a little more to see than Ohio, but still not much. I did most of the driving in the morning until about lunch time.

Next state: Illinois. Not much to say about this drive either. It finished up nicely with a drive through St. Louis. Technically, East St. Louis since the city is in Missouri. We stopped to see the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch. The arch is amazing! I did not know that you can actually go up into the top. Of course there was quite a line when we got there on a Saturday, so we did not partake but we did get some nice pictures.






We found a rest stop and ate lunch west of St. Louis. I guess I should mention that we carried a cooler with lunch meat, bread, cheese, mayo and the like; filling up the ice and making lunch for the next day at the hotels we stayed at. I think this was a nice way to do things. It allowed us to avoid lunch time traffic at fast food stops and kept us close to the highway so we could keep on keepin on.

After lunch we powered on through, passing Kansas City and Topeka. We chose to stop in a small town called Salina KS. Dad picked a Days Inn, which to me was a little sketchy at first, but turned out to be ok. We ate dinner at an IHOP and had crepes, so I was happy.

On this day, KS lived up to my expectations. Not 40 miles south of us, a tornado was spotted along with strong rains and hail! We saw the warnings in our hotel room as we were settling in for the night. I went outside and sat in the truck, listening to a radio call in program that was dedicated to tracking the storm. It was pretty exciting, but I'm glad it remained far away. I did get a blurry picture of the radar map from the tv. We were at the intersection of roads, just north of the red:


Everything was fine and we got a good rest. Day three was coming up, with more of I70 to see....

Ok.... sorry. I have no excuse....

Well, I know you all have been expecting a post from me since, well, I can't remember when. So, I'm just going to start again with no excuses LOL.

Fast forward to June 2009. Dad and I completed a cross country drive in my S10. Yes, the S10 made it! Part of the exhaust few off in Nevada but other than that everything was fine. The entire trip was about 3100 miles, due to the couple detours that we took.


The first day started around 8:45 am. We would have left a bit earlier, but the windows hadn't been washed in my truck for a long time and Dad thought it would be a good idea to do that. We drove toward Maryland to get onto I70/68. From there we drove west and remained on I68 into West Virginia. Immediately into WV, we hit some rain. Not bad, but spots were a bit heavy. At Morgantown, we drove north on I79 towards Washington PA. The weird thing was, that once we left WV it cleared up again.

At Washington PA, we caught I70 again and drove west toward Ohio. This may sound like backtracking, but if you look at starting from Waynesboro it makes sense (it also avoids tolls). So, after passing through WV and Wheeling we were into boring Ohio.

The drivers in Ohio are much nicer than PA/MD/DC and pretty much the east coast for that matter. But, there is not much to see in Ohio so we didn't get many pictures. We took a lunch break somewhere west of Columbus I think.




After trucking through Ohio, we made it in to Indiana. Mind you, we are still on I70 and will be for another two days. We drove around Indianapolis in the early evening, so luckily we missed much of the city traffic. It looked like a pretty nice city, but we weren't compelled to stop. About 15 miles west of the city we found a hotel and checked in for the night.

That was day one of the trip. I'll break it up a little and do each day as a separate post, until I am up to date. That way, you can stop where you like while getting caught up on the stuff I should have posted a long time ago. :)

My goal is to post at least once a week, maybe on Sundays. Hopefully I can keep up with this habit, although don't hold your breath. You know how it has been in the past.